


Puzzles might be fun if you tried them

by Aeleia (LeiaLibelle)



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: And then very sad again, Angst, Blood, Character Development, Death, Gen, Genocide Route, It will get funnier after a while, No Mercy Route, No Romance, Pretty sad I guess, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-14
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-05-01 12:19:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 18
Words: 31,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5205647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeiaLibelle/pseuds/Aeleia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Papyrus swore he would raise the human to be a good person, but trying to raise someone who is constantly aiming to kill you is just as hard as it sounds. Still, there might be some hope left.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hi! this story might contain a lot of spoilers so make sure you've seen all three endings of the game before you read it!

You stab the thing in front of you with your knife and it lets a tiny gasp out before vanishing, its soul crumbling into small pieces that fall on the floor and disappear; just like dust carried away by the soft breeze inside the ruins. You don’t know why you keep doing that, or how many of these monsters you have killed by now, using that plastic toy knife you found somewhere. You just feel like you have to. Or maybe you just don’t know anything else. Asking yourself why just gives you headaches so you stopped doing it at some point. Thinking is painful. Killing is not.

You turn around and feel like nobody else will come here. At the end of the corridor there is nothing but a cold, dark emptiness. You sit down for a while and let your consciousness drift away. Being alone is nice. You don’t get that irritating feeling that tells you you have to destroy everything anymore. It’s like an itch, deep, deep inside your head. You hate it but you found out it becomes more bearable when nothing alive is around. Maybe if you make everything else disappear it will fade away too. You think that that would be nice.

Suddenly, the phone in your pocket rings and the painful itch is back, just as strong as before—maybe even more. You stand up. There is still someone in here.

***

The moment you exit the ruins, you are greeted by a strong gust of wind blowing at your face and your body starts to shake a little. You’re cold but it doesn’t bother you as much as you thought it would. It’s like you already were cold—frozen inside—even before exiting the ruins. So in the end, the snowflakes falling on your skin and the dampness on your feet as you start walking in the snow don’t make a big difference. It just adds a little to the pain. The cold air burns your throat and your lungs and it’s becoming hard to move. Everything is painful. The dried blood and sticky dust on your hands don’t seem to be going away either. You remember the flower’s words but they didn’t make much sense in your messed up head. 

You feel a presence behind you and you stop, letting it come closer. Your hand is on your toy knife, not drawing it yet. You wait until it is right behind you and you slowly turn around.

“Human” is the only word it says. Then it stretches an arm toward you and you don’t know what you’re supposed to do, so you just reach over and take its hand. There is something in it that makes a weird sound. You don’t get it.

The skeleton in front of you starts to giggle a bit and talks, saying things you don’t really care about. You just want it to die so it can be over soon, but this one keeps on talking. Saying words that you understand but don’t know how to react to; telling you its name, like it would make any difference for you to know it. It seems to be waiting for an answer. How long until everything is finally over? You just want the aching pain to stop.

You are brought somewhere and told things, but you don’t care about anything. Another skeleton comes but it doesn’t look like it’s going to fight you either. Why can’t they leave you alone? You wait until they are done talking, hoping they would become bored eventually, or that they attack you so you can kill them and end this. But they don’t, and as the tallest skeleton goes away, the first one keeps staring at you like it knows something you don’t. And suddenly, in the middle of all the nonsensical chat, it asks to “keep on pretending to be human”. You stop for a second, because it reminds you of something the flower said. That you are “not human”. But you don’t think the flower was talking to you back then, and the skeleton probably isn’t either. Nobody is talking to you anyway, so you don’t have anything to answer.

You have to keep going.

 

In the end, the skeletons aren’t back and it’s still the same as it was back in the ruins. Things appear, you kill them. Gain EXP. Gain LOVE. Feel better. Pain goes away. And then there’s nothing else. They stop coming. Alone again. But you have to keep going. You need more LOVE, or the pain won’t completely go away.

There are things on the floor but you don’t have any will to care about checking them out. It would only slow you down. You want it to be over soon so you just keep going. It’s cold here, your feet are wet after walking on the snow for such a long time. It’s not bothering you, though. You can still go on. Eventually those skeletons appear again, but you don’t have time for this.

One of them seems angry for some reason you don’t care about. They keep talking, too. Can’t they understand they won’t get an answer? The tallest one goes away again, dropping a sheet of paper on the floor. You barely look at it, but the shortest skeleton grabs your shoulder.

“Hey… puzzles might be fun, if you tried them.”

You turn back and glance at the paper. You don’t get it. Puzzles are just slowing you down. They make you think, and thinking is painful. The skeleton is staring weirdly at you again. Like it’s thinking about something.

But it’s not like you cared about this at all. It’s not like you cared about anything.

And it’s not like you could, anyway.

The only thing you can do is to keep going and kill everything until there’s nothing left. That way, you won’t have to think about anything. That way, things won’t be painful anymore.

“Here’s some friendly advice,” the skeleton says.

Maybe if you end it all…

“If you keep going the way you are going now…”

Maybe if you make everything go away…

“… You’re gonna have a bad time.”

The skeleton disappears, leaving you alone again. That’s good. Now you can go on and you won’t have to think about things anymore. You arrive at an empty town. There are houses where you can rest, but it would only make things last longer if you stopped. You can’t rest now, not until everything is over and everyone is dead. Determination fills you.

You keep on going and the tall skeleton is here again. Talking in the mist, saying words you don’t have time to hear. Nothing makes sense. It’s time to end this.

“Hey, quit moving!” it shouts. “This is exactly what I am talking about!”

Determination.

“Human! I think you are in need of guidance! Someone needs to keep you on the straight and narrow! But worry not! I, Papyrus…”

Determination.

“Will gladly be your friend and tutor!”

You stop listening. The skeleton opens its arms, dropping its guard. So you stab it. You plant your knife deep inside its body and feel its bones cracking. You keep on pushing and blood splashes over your face. You move your hand down to rip its body apart until it falls down and vanish completely into dust, leaving only the head. It falls miserably on the ground, but even then it keeps talking. Saying words that can’t reach you, that won’t reach you no matter what. Then it disappears too and nothing’s left of it.

Now, you can keep go—

Something pierces through your body and you feel a stabbing, violent pain that paralyses you entirely. You fall on your knees and starts coughing, spitting blood on the already tainted snow on the ground. Your hand reaches to your body, shaking, and _there’s a hole in it_.

“Sorry kid,” says a voice.

You see a shadow coming closer. A glimpse of something blue. But your vision is becoming blurry and you can’t stop coughing. You feel like your lungs are going to explode. It hurts so much, why does it hurt…? It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts…

“But I warned you about having a bad time.”

Something hits your head and everything turns black.


	2. Chapter 2

You wake up in town and instantly grab your belly, clutching it as you cough and scream, writhing in pain in the snow. The hole in your body is gone and so is the blood, but you can still remember the pain. It strikes you as violently as it did back then, and you just want it to be over. When you finally come back to your senses, you slowly get on your feet. You’re sweating and shaking and the cold air makes your throat burn again.

This time, you won’t make the same mistake. This time, you’ll know what is coming and you can prevent it from hitting you. You start walking, the memory of the pain still vivid inside your head. You are filled with determination. You’re going to end it this time.

“Halt, human!” the skeleton shouts. You try to calm your heavy breathing. You can do it. You will kill it again. You step closer. “Hey, quit moving while I’m talking to you!”

You’ve heard that before, so there’s no point in hearing it all again. You move closer and closer and this time again, the skeleton drops its guard. You’re the only one that remembers, after all.

You stab it, just like you did the first time. Blood splashes on your face and bones crack in the most satisfying and delighting sound. The skeleton’s head keeps talking, using the same useless words as before, and then it fades away. That’s good. You’re doing well. Now move a step away before it hits you.

A bone passes right next to you and lands in the snow. You turn around and face the small skeleton. It’s looking at you, smiling. You see drops of sweat rushing on its skull.

“So you really knew it was coming” it says, giggling but not looking so happy.

You step closer, holding your knife steadily. It’s time to end this all.

“But, heh… I’ve got bad news for you.”

You stop. The skeleton’s eye is glowing.

“Because that won’t change a damn thing.”

You’re about to charge, but suddenly you see something just above your head and you just have enough time to apprehend what is going on before dozens of bones crash right onto you, hitting your body from every side at the same time. You can only open your mouth. You don’t even manage to scream.

***

“Hey kid, ready to die again?”

You clench your teeth and dash angrily, stabbing the air again and again but every time the skeleton moves away like it’s the easiest thing in the world. He hits you, and you die.

And then you come again. Kill the tall one.

“How many times is it, now?”

Fight, and die again. Come back. Kill it.

“Is it fun, killing my brother over and over?”

Stabbing pain; feeling sick. Die again, but coming back. Bones cracking.

“You know, you should really learn to give up.”

How many times, you don’t remember. But you remember the pain. Every time you’re being killed it just adds up. You want it to stop. You want the skeleton to _die_.

“No matter what you do, it will just be the same. So, maybe try something different next time?”

You want to kill it. It’s not even about leaving this place anymore. You just want it to suffer and die.

“Is it next time already? I can’t really tell!”

Die, die, _just die already!_

 

You wake up in the snow again and ignore all the pain, just stand up and walk directly to that place. You don’t pay any attention to the weak skeleton’s words and stab it like you always do. And this time again, the small one is right behind, smiling. You know how it’s going to be. You’re just going to die again. It will be painful and horrible; you will spit blood and feel your insides being torn up.

“You look pretty calm, kid. Like someone who has been killed so many times they’re finally starting to give up.”

You wait.

“Wow, you look really angry. But at least it means you’re feeling something now. Whose feelings are those, though?”

Feelings? You don’t know. And you don’t care either; you just want to kill.

“Anyway, I’m going to have to kill you again. Sorry, kid, those are the rules. That, you know, I made up. But if you want things to be different… Heh, you know what? I’m not gonna tell. Enjoy getting dunked on.”

You draw your knife and rush—and the skeleton just kills you again.

 

This time, you don’t go right away. You sit in the snow and look at the sky, waiting for the pain of your latest death to fade away a little. You try to think of anything you could do. Thinking is painful, as usual, but you’ve figured out you can’t move on the way things are now. You would just get killed again, over and over. You’re starting to feel irritated. And suddenly, you realize a very simple thing.

There is absolutely no way you can win this.

 

“Halt, human!”

The tall skeleton is looking at you, as usual. You feel like nothing matters anymore. You step closer, listening to the words you know very well by now.

“It feels… Like your life is going down a dangerous path.”

You’ve heard those words so many times now. You never payed attention to them, because they were never something that mattered in the first place.

“Everyone can be a great person if they try!”

It’s not like listening would make a difference, right? Because, no matter what they said to you, no matter what they did… The ending would be the same. You’d have to kill everything and make the world disappear. It’s the only thing you can do.

“I see you are approaching. Are you offering a hug of acceptance?”

It’s the only thing you can do anymore. Destroy everything. Gain EXP, gain LOVE. And break the world apart.

“I, Papyrus, welcome you with open arms!”

You stab it. Blood and dust and bones cracking, and you know what is coming next. The skeleton’s head falls on the ground. You don’t even feel like stepping away. You just look at it, listen as it keeps talking.

“St… Still! I believe in you!”

There’s no hope left for you.

“You can do a little better! Even if you don’t think so!”

Everything you try will end in failure.

“I… I promise…”

You can never be anything.

The skull vanishes and you look up. It’s here, smiling at you, ready to attack. You look down at where the other skeleton’s head was, and then you look at your hands, covered in its blood and dust. Soon you will feel that pain again, and it will never be any different.

So you look up again and you open your mouth.

“What… What do I have to do, for you to not kill me?” you ask, and the skeleton tilts its head a bit.

And it starts smiling again.

“Don’t ask _me_. I’m not the one willing to spare you.”

***

You wake up in the snow. In the end, it did kill you this time again. But you remember its words. You feel like you understand what it meant, but you don’t want to do it. There’s still this thing itching painfully in your head. But for now it seems like you don’t have any other choice.

You walk towards the tall skeleton, listen to its words again. You wait for it to drop its guard. You step closer to it.

And… you spare it.

Not because you want to. Not because you feel any different. You still want to kill it; you want to kill it so bad… But you spare it, because there is nothing else you can do.

As the skeleton takes you in its arms, you think you catch the glimpse of something glowing behind, but it quickly fades away. You close your eyes. For now, it seems you managed not to get killed.

“Worry not, human!” the tall skeleton shouts in your ears. “I will raise you to be a good person! The finest you could be! After all, you have the best role model right in front of you!!”

It finally lets go of you and takes your hand in its own.

“Come, I’ll show you my house! That’s where you’re going to live from now on!”

You nod silently and follow the skeleton without saying a word. You finally found a way to survive this but it looks like you will have to stay in this place for a while. These skeletons don’t seem like they will let you go anytime soon, and even if they did, it would be pointless to go on if you can’t kill everything in your way. So you stay quiet and let the skeleton lead you to its house, half-listening to it talking about finding you a room to sleep. You’ve given up on trying to force your way through.

Now, it’s time to think about how you’re going to take them down.


	3. Chapter 3

You’re sitting at a table for some reason and you wish someone could explain to you what you are supposed to do with the frozen thing in the plate in front of you.

“That’s weird, Sans… The human is not touching their food at all!”

“They’re probably just shy.”

The Sans-skeleton smirks at you and you feel irritated without knowing why. You have been in this house for maybe an hour now. The skeleton called Papyrus had spent a lot of time talking but its words didn’t have any meaning to you. Maybe because you never answered, it stopped talking after a while and you have been observing it ever since. Waiting for an opportunity to kill it. Unfortunately, the Sans-skeleton never left the room, so you couldn’t do a thing.

But it won’t be here forever. There will be a chance for you to act. Catch them both by surprise and stab them to death. Maybe when they’re asleep…

“Human, you should eat the spaghetti I especially made for you!” the Papyrus-skeleton shouts. “Eating good food will make you feel better!”

You look at the thing the skeletons call food again. You haven’t eaten in a while but this doesn’t look edible at all. The small skeleton seems to be well aware of that fact but hasn’t been saying a thing. You want to kill them both, steal all their real food, and go.

“Sans, they’re still not eating!! Why are they not eating?”

“I don’t know, bro. Maybe they’re not hungry.”

The Papyrus-skeleton goes back to the kitchen and you watch it silently. Think of all the ways you could kill it. They took your toy knife but there might be real knives in the kitchen. A fork could do, too. You could hit it with that frying pan over there and…

You shiver suddenly and look at the Sans-skeleton, who is now staring intensely at you. Its smile is almost threatening, like it’s telling you that bad things would happen if you made a move. You clench your teeth out of frustration.

 

Night falls soon after that and the tallest skeleton tells you that you can sleep on the couch. You glance over the other side of the living room at the small old couch with a blanket and a pillow on it. You don’t say anything, calmly waiting for them to go to their rooms as you go sit on it. Instead of going, the Papyrus-skeleton comes next to you and puts the blanket over your knees.

“I know you might feel scared of sleeping in a place you don’t know,” he calmly says, “but if you do, just remember that we are right behind you. Or rather, right above you, in our rooms upstairs. So there is nothing to worry about!!”

You say nothing, waiting for it to go. It doesn’t.

“Now, it’s time for your bedtime story!! I have just the one for you!”

It takes a book on the floor and starts opening it and reading out loud, and you clench your teeth again. But a quick glance over the room lets you know that the other skeleton is still there, and that it won’t let you do anything. You lie on the couch, facing the pillows and raging interiorly as the Papyrus-skeleton keeps on telling its stupid story you’re not even listening to.

 

When the skeletons are finally gone and the room’s lights have been turned off, you get up and start searching around for weapons. Unsurprisingly, all the knives and forks have been removed from the drawers in the kitchen. You still look everywhere, not caring about the mess you’re leaving behind you. You finally find a dart under the couch, covered in dust like it has been forgotten here for quite a long time. That will do. Now go.

You carefully climb every step, making sure not to make any sound at all. You haven’t been hearing anything for a while so you’re pretty sure the skeletons are both asleep by now. You cannot wait to see their faces as they wake up and realize this is their last living moment. It’s weird, actually. For you to _want_ anything. But it doesn’t really matter, since you’re doing what you have to do anyway.

You reach the last step and check the corridor. It’s empty. Good. Now you just have to open the door, and—

“Going somewhere, kid?”

You jump back, startled. The Sans-skeleton is right next to you, its left eye glowing. When did it come here? You were sure the corridor was empty a second ago! But the skeleton is here, smiling at you like it’s saying the next step you make towards that door will be your last. You clench your teeth and force yourself to shake your head.

The Sans-skeleton nods satisfyingly as you go back downstairs. Does this thing never sleep? No… It has to drop its guard sometime. It’s still the first day. It won’t stay awake forever. You hold tight the dart in your hand.

You go lie on the couch again and pull the blanket up to your head. You have to be patient. Rushing things won’t get you anywhere. It’s okay. There will be an opportunity sooner or later.

“Looks like you’ve gotten yourself in a pretty terrible situation here,” the flower says. You turn on your side to look at it. You had almost forgotten about it. “Do you want me to deal with this?”

You keep quiet.

“You’re right,” it says. “There’d be no point. Let’s observe them for a while. It’s not like they can do anything, anyway. And even if they wanted to… You and me, we’re way stronger than they are, right?”

The flower laughs in the creepiest way and you turn over. You don’t like the flower. In the end it will just be in the way, like everyone else. You have to destroy everything. Don’t ever forget it.

***

You’re awoken by the smell of something burning and you slowly get on your feet. Waking up is always the worst. You wish you could stay asleep forever. That way you wouldn’t have to think about anything or feel that terrible headache anymore.

“Oh, human!” the tall skeleton beams as it sees you from the kitchen. “I’m making pancakes! I’m sure you can’t wait to eat them already, but you have to wait a few more minutes!!”

Judging from the smell, there is no way waiting any longer would be a good idea, but you don’t intend on eating it anyway. It seems like the other skeleton is not far. You can feel its presence nearby. If it can appear from nowhere like it did last night, that would mean there’s nothing you can do unless it’s very far away.

You stand here doing nothing until the Papyrus-skeleton leaves the kitchen and gently pushes your back to make you sit at the table. It then goes back to the kitchen and returns with a plate it places in front of you. It’s full of black, round-shaped things. You grab one of them with your hand and it’s solid like a rock. You throw it at the skeleton’s face. You don’t even know why you’re doing it. It just feels like the appropriate reaction.

“Hey!!” it screams. “Didn’t anyone teach you not to play with your food?”

You grab another "pancake" and throw it at the skeleton again.

“Human!! I think you are misunderstanding the purpose of—”

Before it can end its sentence, you grab the full plate and throw it away. It crashes on the wall, breaking into pieces. The burnt pancakes, however, somehow stay glued to the wall. It doesn’t seem like they will fall any time soon. The skeleton looks at the wall and then at you again, like it doesn’t know what to say. Suddenly your cheeks hurt a little. Are you smiling? Looks like you are. You even giggle a bit.

“Okay,” the skeleton says. “I see now that we might have more work to do than I expected if we want to fix that behavior of yours. But! I, Papyrus, shall not give up on you so easily!!”

It proudly punches its chest in a determined pose and you look away. The small skeleton seems to be coming downstairs too, now. It barely looks at the pancakes glued to the wall and just sits on the couch, turning the TV on. You give it a stare full of hatred but it’s not paying attention to you at all. Meanwhile, the Papyrus-skeleton has returned to the kitchen, apparently to make more pancakes. Both of them have also started talking about things you don’t care about. And because there’s nothing else you can do, you just drop your head on the table.

You wish everything could be over soon.


	4. Chapter 4

In the end, you haven’t moved from your chair the whole day, your jaw resting on the wooden surface of the table, absent-mindedly looking at the wall. The pancakes on it haven’t moved either, but nobody seems to care about it.

All day long, the tall skeleton has tried talking to you or making you do things, but of course, you never listened. Its words were just the same as the voices of the people talking on TV, on whatever show the other skeleton had been watching. Distant sounds that weren’t directed at you, meaningless; so you paid no attention to them. In the end, the skeleton had left you alone, only dropping a sheet of paper next to you on the table. They both went outside after that, locking you inside the house.

Eventually, after maybe an hour has passed, you raise your head a little and look at the paper. There are words scribbled on it and something that looks like a grid of sorts. Right, another of those puzzles things. You tear the paper apart and lay your head on the table again. A growling sound comes out of your belly, and you remember you have some food left in your pockets.

 

When the skeletons are home and the tall one notice the teared up paper on the floor, it doesn’t say anything but quietly grab every piece before exiting to its room. The Sans-skeleton just sits on the couch again. But after a few minutes, the tallest skeleton is back and it drops the same sheet of paper on the table, awkwardly stitched back together with adhesive tape. You ignore it, and the skeleton returns to its room without saying a word.

You turn over and glance at the small skeleton on the couch. It’s watching TV, its head resting on its hand. You can’t see its face from that angle, so maybe it can’t see you either. You hold the dart you found yesterday firmly. Maybe this is your chance.

Quickly, you throw it at the skeleton with all your strength, aiming at the back of its head. But the moment before it reaches its goal, the dart suddenly changes its trajectory and plants itself in the wall. You growl, and you can hear the skeleton laughing quietly, its eyes still on the TV screen.

What are you supposed to do now? You can’t kill them, and you can’t move on without killing them. The itching inside your head becomes unbearably painful. You have to destroy something, or it won’t go away, it won’t ever go away! You grab the sheet of paper and make a ball of it with your hand before throwing it away angrily. It’s not enough!

You get up and kick your chair away, ignoring the pain in your foot. Then you run towards the kitchen and open every drawer, grabbing everything in your reach just to toss them on the floor in a fury. You don’t pay attention to the sound of footsteps rushing downstairs, or the cries, and when a bony arm tries to reach out to you, you just push it away, screaming.

“See… I told you this was a bad idea”, you hear the Sans-skeleton say.

You cover the other skeleton’s answer with your screams, still kicking and punching at everything, pulling the drawers out, breaking the plates and the glasses on the floor. You then grab a long, sharp shard of broken glass and hold it tight in your hand, facing the two skeletons again. The small one is still smiling, but there are drops of sweat on its face. The tallest one just looks confused, so you ignore it, dashing toward the one you want to kill most.

Of course, it evades as easily as it always did. But before you can think of your next move, you feel a strong grip on your arm and you turn over, ready to hit the tall skeleton instead.

“Stop this!!” it suddenly shouts, and its voice is so loud that it makes your head dizzy for a few seconds. “You’re bleeding!”

You stop, and the Papyrus-skeleton softly opens your fingers to make you drop the shard. Blood is dripping out of your hand, red drops falling on the carpet. You don’t feel any pain from it, and your whole arm is kind of numb now.

“Oh no!!! It’s not stopping!” the Papyrus-skeleton screams, looking very upset about this for some reason. “Why do humans bleed this much?? Quick, come with me! Don’t worry, human! I will… I will fix you!!”

It doesn’t sound as confident as it’s trying to be, but you let it lead you to the sink. The broken glass shattered everywhere on the floor crackles as you step on it. You don’t feel like fighting anymore, now that you’ve calmed down a bit and that the blood loss is making your head dizzy. Water starts to fall on your wounded hand, cleansing all the blood away. You watch it quietly. You find this vision rather… soothing, in a way.

The skeleton, on the other hand, seems to be in a state of complete panic and confusion. It’s looking around nervously, like it’s trying to find something. Then it looks at your hand again. The cut looks pretty deep, and it don’t seem like the bleeding is going to stop. The skeleton grimaces and turns over.

“What should I do?” It asks the other. “Do you think this is bad? They’re not going to die, right??”

“I dunno, they’re human so maybe they could.”

“Oh no!!!” It grips both of your shoulders, staring at you intensely. “Hang on! Don’t give up! Can you hear me?? How many fingers do I have?”

“Bro, they can’t even see your hands.”

“Sans, you idiot, that doesn’t mean they cannot count!” It shouts angrily.

You keep quiet, still looking at the blood dripping from your hand. You don’t understand why they are making such a fuss about this. It’s not like they are the ones wounded. Why should they care? You don’t get it.

 

The skeletons eventually managed to find something to bandage your hand with. The bleeding has stopped, and apparently you won’t need stitches. Even if you did, you probably wouldn’t have cared. As long as it’s not keeping you from pursuing your goal, it doesn’t really matter to you.

But why did the skeletons care? You can’t comprehend it. It just doesn’t make any sense. Yet, you feel like you remember something. Not a memory, maybe… more like a feeling. You’re not completely sure, but you shouldn’t think about it. It’s better not to think. Beside, thinking makes you suffer, right?

It’s night time again, now, and you’re alone in the living room. The flower isn’t here tonight, but you know it’s not very far away. You feel a little cold, even under the blanket; maybe because you lost so much blood today. On the small table near the couch, the tall skeleton has left a plastic glass full of water and the same sheet of paper from before, with the puzzle on it. It’s all crumpled and you can barely make out the words written on it anymore.

Still, you take a look at it. You somehow manage to decipher the words on the top. It says: “HUMAN!! TRY TO SOLVE THIS AMAZING PUZZLE THAT I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, HAVE MADE JUST FOR YOU!!!” Under that, you can see letters and little boxes. There are no rules written whatsoever. You hate having to think about things, so you put it back again.

But something makes you reach out to the sheet again. Curiosity? Boredom? You don’t know what it is, but you look at the puzzle a little more. It looks like you have to form words out of the shambled letters, and use some letters of those words to make another, longer word out at the end. You give it a try, telling yourself that you will stop if anything demands too much concentration, but the puzzle turns out to be really easy. All the words are really short and simple, like “shirt” or “blue”. You find the answer without much effort, but suddenly you realize they didn’t leave a pencil for you to fill the boxes.

You think about it a few seconds and finally decide to tear just the letters up, carefully ripping them one by one. It’s messy and the sheet is now full of holes, but you put it on the table and set the letters upon it to form the answer: “P-A-P-Y-R-U-S.”

You lie on the couch again, looking at the ceiling. That thing was completely useless. You didn’t gain anything by completing it, and you don’t feel any different from before. It was just a pain, like you thought it would be. You close your eyes. You don’t want to go upstairs to check if the small skeleton is awake. It probably is, anyway, and you’re too tired this time.

Still, you know you will kill it in the end. Nothing has changed in a day. Killing them is the only outcome; it’s the only thing you can do.

***

You wake up from a terrible nightmare in the early morning, sweating and shaking. You clutch your head; it’s so painful… Those memories… The hatred, so much hatred, for everything, for everyone… It hurts inside, you want it to stop! You want everything to stop…

“Are you okay??”

You blink at the tall skeleton in front of you. You didn’t even hear it coming; your head just hurts so much… You close your eyes again, clenching your teeth in pain. You feel the skeleton’s hand gently rub your back, pulling you over until your forehead touches its cold, bony shoulders. You don’t feel well enough to shake the skeleton away so you just let it rub your back and pat your head, trying to let your mind drift away. Forget about everything… Don’t think… Just… sleep for a while…

Remember… When you destroy everything and everyone… There won’t be pain anymore.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is about bad spaghetti and sans being a jerk. i'm glad to see some people enjoy reading this fic... writing in a foreign language is hard and i'm always unsure abt how it will turn out, so your comments really encourage me a lot :)

When you wake up again, you find yourself alone at the skeleton’s house. A plate of spaghetti is on the table. The pasta is raw, yet burnt at the same time, and you find yourself wondering how such a culinary atrocity is even possible. Fortunately, you manage to find some potato chips in the fridge and you eat them while sitting on the couch. You notice that the sheet of paper with the puzzle you completed last night is gone but you don’t give it much thought.

The skeletons are back soon after that, and Papyrus immediately rushes over to you.

“Human, you shouldn’t eat those despicable greasy stuff, they will make you sick!” he says, snatching the bag of chips from your hands. You stare angrily at him. “Though, I must say… I didn’t expect you to be so modest. To think that you restrained yourself from eating this plate of tasty spaghetti here…”

He looks at the plate with teary eyes and then grabs both of your shoulders.

“There is no need to be shy!” he screams at your face. “You live here now, so you can eat just as much as you want! Besides, I still have plenty of pre-cooked spaghetti in the fridge, and I can always make more!! Actually, I just had a great idea! Rejoice, human! Today, you will be granted the honor of tasting my new recipe!!!”

You stick out your tongue in disgust at the thought, but Papyrus has already left towards the kitchen. You turn back and glance at the other guy. He’s just lying on the couch again, watching TV and eating the last of the chips bag. You feel irritated just looking at him.

Because the couch is taken, you just sit at the table, pushing away the abandoned plate of inedible pasta; even the smell of it is making you sick. From here, you can watch Papyrus bustle around the kitchen, an excited smile on his face.

You haven’t even been here that long, but it’s almost like you’re accustomating to this place already. Which is probably not a good thing. Stopping to rest only makes it more difficult to stand up again, after all. And the skeleton… when did you even start thinking of it as a “he”? This is definitely weird; putting a name on the things you are supposed to kill. Maybe that’s because you have no other choice but to accept this situation, for now, so you’re adapting to it.

Papyrus eventually comes back with a full plate of freshly-made spaghetti, and he puts it right in front of you, waiting quite eagerly for you to taste it. He did talk about a new recipe, but it doesn’t seem different from the first one at all. You cautiously poke it with your fork, and you might not be an expert, but you can feel that something is wrong just with its texture.

“Eat it before it gets cold!” Papyrus says enthusiastically.

You absolutely don’t want to eat that, but he’s pressuring you to try it; and you haven’t eaten anything decent in a while, so you should really fill your stomach with something if you don’t want to collapse. You will also need strength if you’re going to take the other skeleton down… But won’t eating this thing have the opposite effect?

You reluctantly take a bite of it. As expected, it tastes terrible. You’re not exactly a picky eater; in fact, you don’t care about the taste of food at all, but this case is different. It was almost like trying to feed on rock and grass, fully aware that your body can’t assimilate it. How is Papyrus still alive and well if that’s the only thing he eats is a complete mystery to you. Maybe that’s because he’s a skeleton. He doesn’t even have a stomach; does he even need to eat at all?

If that’s not the case, then he probably won’t realize that eating this thing continuously will end up killing you one day. Or maybe that’s what they want. To make you sick until you can’t move anymore, and then enjoy watching you die slowly. The small guy has figured out you’ll come back every time he kills you, so he’s doing it as revenge, just to make you suffer.

You eat half of your plate anyway, because eating something that will slowly make you ill is still better than dying of hunger right away, and Papyrus seems satisfied, totally oblivious to your painful and disgusted expressions.

“I see that you are pleased with this delectable treat,” he quietly starts, “but I have yet another great surprise waiting for you! Can you guess what it is? I’ll give you a hint: it’s something that you like to do after a nice meal.”

The only things you feel like doing right now is lying on the floor, and die. You look at your fork, still right next to your plate. It would be so simple to just take it and stab him to death with it. In fact, why don’t you just do it? It would feel so satisfying… And even if the other guy kills you after that, you could always rewind. Don’t you want that itching sensation to stop, even for a moment? Just do it.

“That’s right!!” Papyrus exclaims before you get to answer. “Puzzles!!!”

Yeah, right. You grab your fork and charge at him violently, pushing him with all your strength until he trips and falls on the floor. Then you jump at him, brandishing your fork and ready to stab him in the chest, when suddenly the fork is not in your hand anymore. You raise your head, furious, and barely catch a glimpse of blue with your eyes before Papyrus grips your arm and firmly moves you away, now standing on his knees to face you.

“I thought we covered this already!” he says in an upset tone. “No stabbing each other! Or any kind of violence at all! Gee, I’m going to have to explain everything to you again!”

He gets up and goes to pick something in his room. Meanwhile, you just stare angrily at the small guy, but he’s not paying attention to you anymore. You know he’s the one who stopped you. You’re really going to make him pay, someday.

When Papyrus comes back, he is holding an old plush of a dog in his hands. It’s dusty and it’s missing an eye.

“Here, take this,” he says, giving the plush to you. “As you can see, this is only a fake dog plush, but just pretend this is a nice, living, happy dog. But not the annoying kind of stupid dog that steals your bones. Imagine it’s a very polite and courteous dog. Now, what do you do with it?”

You look at the old plush for a second before throwing it at the floor. Papyrus stares blankly at you.

“Okay, good. You did well in showing me the exact behavior you should _not_ have. Now, I, Papyrus, will demonstrate the correct attitude to adopt towards it. Watch closely, human.”

He slowly reaches down and picks the plush while looking at you the whole time, like he’s telling you to pay close attention and remember every move he makes. Then, he puts the fake dog on its feet and very cautiously puts his hand on it.

“First,” he explains, “you approach it carefully, so that it doesn’t misunderstand your friendly intentions. Then, you put your hand on its head, just like I’m doing right now.”

He then proceeds to move his hand very slowly to pet the plush dog.

“Then, you move your hand like this. It’s called petting. It’s what you do with dogs. You pet them. And then, maybe, if it’s showing some signs of appreciation, you pet them some more. Do you understand?”

You keep quiet, showing no emotion whatsoever.

“Alright, now it’s your turn. Remember. The key is to rub it gently and softly. I know you can do it!”

He pushes the dog plush closer to you and you stare at it for maybe a minute or two. Papyrus is waiting patiently for you to do something. Finally, you reach your hand to the plush and slap it violently onto the floor like you’re crushing a mosquito, flattening its head with the palm of your hand. The fabric tears up a little, and cotton pops out of its head. Papyrus stays completely quiet the whole time. Eventually he opens his mouth and hesitates a few seconds before talking again.

“O… kay. That was… absolutely not gentle or soft in any way. But I can see that you’re trying, and I appreciate your efforts!! And, as a reward, I shall give you this great puzzle to play with!”

He turns over and pulls a small, rectangular box from behind his back, grinning.

“It’s a jigsaw puzzle. And what is great with those, is that you can do them over and over how many times you like! Isn’t that neat?! I know you can’t wait to try it, but do not feel discouraged if you cannot complete it on your first try. It’s a pretty hard one.”

Papyrus lets the box in front of you before leaving the house, saying it’s time for him to return on patrol or something. The Sans-skeleton, however, does not move an inch from the couch, which means you can’t escape from this room for now. There seems to be some stupid show on TV, but you don’t care about that at all. You’re going to kill all those monsters someday, anyway.

You look at the puzzle box, scratching your head. The itching feeling inside is more painful than ever, since you haven’t killed anything in a long time. It’s an awful, nerve-racking sensation; an urge you know you just _have_ to obey to, but can’t. Not being able to do anything about it makes you want to distract yourself from it in any way possible. Something to keep your mind busy, so you don’t have to think about important things. Thinking about those always ends up being painful.

You open the box and notice that there aren’t many pieces. The box says fifty. It’s a drawing of two rabbits in a flower field.

For a second, you turn back to check at the other guy. He’s still watching TV like you don’t exist at all. You wish he wouldn’t be here, because his presence is distracting—knowing that a living being is close, but not being able to kill it, makes your head hurt. Still, you try to ignore him for now, and you spill the puzzle pieces on the floor.

At first, it’s easy. The only thing you have to do is flip the pieces over on the right side. But when it’s done, you frown. Focusing on looking at the picture is giving you a headache, so you just grab two pieces randomly and try to assemble them together. It doesn’t fit, so you grab another, and then a third one. When the fourth piece doesn’t match either, you try to force it and end up breaking it in half. You throw all the pieces away in frustration and go sit somewhere else on the bare floor.

But then, you catch the small guy looking at you, a grin on his face. You feel insulted, somehow. Now he starts laughing at you and you want to tear his head apart from his body—the only thing stopping you, of course, is the memory of having your own body crushed by dozens of heavy bones falling on you. But you can’t stand watching him mocking you like this, so you come back and sit in front of the jigsaw puzzle again. You gather back the pieces you’ve thrown away before and this time, you try arranging them by color.

You know the puzzle isn’t hard. It’s having to concentrate on it that is. If you did, you would complete it in a flash. But the thought that that Sans guy might believe otherwise makes you angry for some reason. You don’t think that that feeling will go away until you prove it to him, so you try focusing on the puzzle a little more.

In the end, it takes you less than five minutes to match all the pieces together. The final picture looks a bit weird because of the broken piece in the middle, but it’s complete. You raise your head and grin defiantly at the small skeleton. When he notices you, however, he just starts giggling again.

“Man, do you seriously feel proud after doing something like that? Well congrats, you’ve just reached babybones level.”

You have to try really hard not to throw something at him again. You hate that guy the most and you want him to disappear and suffer somewhere for the rest of his life!

You go sit in the furthest corner of the living room, facing the wall so that you can’t see his annoying face again. These skeletons are dumb, and puzzles and dumb, dumb, dumb! You hope everything will be over soon and you can kill these guys, so that everything will return to normal and you can destroy the world and don’t feel anything anymore. You shouldn’t have started feeling things again. Not thinking about anything is better. This has to stop.


	6. Chapter 6

A few days have passed after that, and it’s now been a week since you started living at the skeletons’ house. Unfortunately, not much has changed in that short time. Papyrus seems to be very persistent on making you solve puzzles, as he keeps bringing new ones every day. Junior jumbles, jigsaw puzzles, Rubik’s cube, words puzzles or the “spot the difference” kind; each time it’s a different one. Sometimes you try them, sometimes you don’t. But when you try, they’re always relatively easy. Like the riddles for children you could find on cereal boxes. It takes a lot of effort for you to concentrate and think about the answer, but otherwise, anyone could solve them.

Papyrus always praises you a lot. Like that time you completed the jigsaw puzzles. When he came home that night and saw it on the floor, he just ran over to you and gave you a hug, telling you things like “You’re really great!” or “See, you can do it if you try!” that made you feel a little weird—like remembering something you’re supposed to feel at times like these without actually feeling it.

The other guy, however, is the worst. Whenever he sees you having troubles solving a puzzle, he just grins or laughs at you, reminding you how easy they are or saying that he’d have found the answer right away. You hate the other guy. With his stupid grin and the sweat on his skull, and the socks he is just leaving everywhere in the house with no apparent reason! Yeah, you really despise that one.

Papyrus is… He’s all right. He’s annoying sometimes, and the food he insist on making you is still inedible and horrible, but most of the time, he’s okay. You think maybe that’s because you could take him down easily anytime. He’s not a threat, like the other guy is, so you can keep your guard low when he’s around.

You tried going upstairs at night again twice, but the small guy was always here to greet you, appearing from nowhere just to put a hand on your shoulder and tell you to go to sleep. Even during the day, although all he does is lying on the couch watching TV, you can never find a good opportunity to attack. Every time you think he’s asleep and approach him carefully, he suddenly winks or grins at you and you have to step back.

The itching pain inside your head, of course, has not faded away. However, puzzles make you forget about it just a little. You still don’t understand how something like that could be any fun at all, because it’s honestly just a pain, having to concentrate on them every time, but they help. Although, sometimes you only do them to prove the small skeleton that you can solve them. You just can’t stand it, when he’s laughing at you or mocking you.

Today again, you’re forced to eat the terrible spaghetti—it’s like Papyrus doesn’t know any other recipe—and you sit on the floor all day, doing puzzles or doing nothing. You can’t solve the Rubik’s cube yet, and you keep it next to you so you can pick it and try again any time. You usually only last a couple of minutes, but you think that you’re making progress. Every time you drop it on the floor after another failed attempt, the Sans-guy giggles a bit and you feel flustered.

You were thinking about giving the puzzle another try when Papyrus starts screaming at the other guy, scolding him for his laziness like he does several times a day. Their voices are distracting you, so you wait for them to stop before returning to the Rubik’s cube, half listening to their conversation.

“Sans, you can’t just sit on the couch doing nothing all day!!” Papyrus scolds.

“I can, actually. I’m doing it right now, look.”

“I don’t mean it that way and you know it!! You’ve been slacking from your jobs even more than before, lately! What if another human crosses the barrier??”

“Well, it’s not like they could do any worse than this one here. Besides, there’s no one in town anymore.”

“That is not true. I’m here, and you are, and Undyne still comes by sometimes. And when they see that the town is safe, everyone will come back eventually.”

The small guy just shrugs and Papyrus appears to be even more pissed off.

“Fine!” he shouts. “Do what you want! I’ll take the human with me instead!!”

The other guy suddenly seems to show some interest as he turns his head towards Papyrus, sweat drops starting to appear on his head.

“Um, are you sure about that, bro?”

“I am! Lately, they’ve been doing way more progress on their puzzles than you are! All thanks to my admirable guidance, obviously.”

You raise your head as Papyrus walks towards you, and he grabs you by the back of your collar before pulling you up until you stand on your feet.

“Come, human! Let’s leave this bone idle waste his life on that couch; I will show you the town. And, if you behave nicely and not murderously like you always do, maybe I shall allow you to try some of my latest anti-human deadly puzzles!”

Papyrus then holds your wrist and proceeds to lead you outside of the house. At first, you try to pull away from his grip, but he’s holding you tight and you decide it would be a waste of effort to struggle anyway, since you don’t really care about being here or somewhere else anyway.

You feel the stare of the small skeleton on your back as you exit the house. Something tells you that he’s going to follow to keep an eye on you.

 

The air outside is cold and the town is just as empty and full of ice as the last time you saw it, a week ago. You absent-mindedly follow Papyrus around—more like he’s dragging you along, actually—and listen to him introduce every building you come across.

“That’s Grillby’s,” he says, pointing at some kind of bar or restaurant. “My brother usually spends most of his time here, as do most of the Royal Guards. It’s more crowded than that, on days when everyone hasn’t escaped somewhere.”

After walking for a while, you both reach the edge of the snowy town.

“So… I guess that’s all there is to show in this town. It is… usually lively, around here. But I’m sure everyone will come back soon, and then I can introduce you to them!”

You look at your feet, not really interested by his story. But after a moment of silence, you look at Papyrus again and he seems kind of troubled. Suddenly, he shakes his head and his expression is determined and cheerful again.

“Anyway, human! I must let you know that I, Papyrus, am very proud of your latest achievements. I think I am not mistaken in believing that you finally started to understand the beauty and greatness of puzzles, and trust me: you are very talented at it!! Of course, you will surely never come close to my level, but you might be able to claim the title of second best one day!”

He pauses for a few seconds and you look at his face. He looks very serious about all this. You don’t really understand, though. Why would all those things matter at all? Why does he keep trying to reach out to you…? It’s not like he will gain something from it. It’s not like it will make any difference in the end…

Suddenly, you feel like you are being observed. You look around, on your guard.

“So as I said," Papyrus continues, "I shall now lead you to my newest puzzles, and—”

He is interrupted by a light-blue spear crashing on the ground, right in front of you both. You jump to hide behind Papyrus as someone in a heavy armor slowly approaches. A dreadful feeling flows in the air as it comes closer and you check inside your pockets; you don’t have any kind of weapon on you right now, but maybe you could find a wooden stick on the floor, or dash to the shop nearby and steal something…

“Un… Undyne!" Papyrus gasps. "What, um… What brings you here?”

“I had a feeling something was wrong when you told me the human was not here anymore,” the stranger says abruptly, “but I didn’t think you would actually dare lying to my face.”

Papyrus shakes a little, looking unsure.

“Human? What human are you tal—”

“Don’t try to fool me, Papyrus!” the other one screams angrily. “Now step aside and let me deal with this! I’m sorry for the King, but I must eliminate it before it does any more harm!”

You stare at the enemy, still hiding behind Papyrus. He looks like he’s hesitating.

“I can’t let you do that!” he finally says. “They’re not like you think they are!”

“Are you blind?!” the armored one shouts. “Don’t you know how many lives they’ve taken? Look at them! Using you as a shield… And that look in their eyes… Someone like that can never be forgiven!”

“Still, everyone deserves a second chance!” Papyrus insists. “They can be better, if someone believes in them! And I do!! I know they can change, they just need someone to keep them on the right path!”

The enemy looks taken aback for a second or two, like it’s recalling something. But then, it raises its hand and a spear appears in the air.

“Enough! Move now, or you’ll get hurt too!”

The spear charge violently at you and you climb on Papyrus’s legs to prevent him from moving and letting it hit you; but he doesn’t. He doesn’t even try to move away, ready to take the hit up front. You know he’s way stronger than you physically; he could easily shake you off and escape, so why? It doesn’t make sense…

The spear stops just before hitting him. It trembles a little before eventually falling on the ground. A dreadful silence follows, until the enemy finally takes its helmet off, revealing the face of a blue-skinned monster with long, red hair. The look on her face is somewhat sad, or resigned.

“Fine, whatever,” she finally says. “I’ll let you take responsibility for this case. Most of the Royal Guard is dead, anyway…” She stops and shrugs a bit before sighing deeply. “I failed at my job. There’s no point for me to keep on doing it anymore.”

Papyrus gives her a sympathetic look, but she cuts him off before he can say anything, staring directly at you now.

“But, human… Don’t think that means I won’t do anything in my power to stop you. You might have fooled Papyrus, but I don’t trust you. If you just give me one reason, I will end you, even if it’s the last thing I do. You can be sure of it.”

She turns back and starts walking away, but stops after a few steps.

“And, if you really are trying to change…” she adds in a cold tone, “those guys you killed? They were a bunch of lazy-ass idiots, but they were good guys. No matter what you do, the fact that you cold-bloodedly murdered them will never disappear. You won’t ever be able to run away from your sins. And I won’t forgive you either.”

You watch the monster called Undyne walk away before she totally disappears from your view. Snow is falling, and some of it started piling on your hair and clothes. Papyrus gently brushes it away with his hand and he gives you a patient smile.

“Well, things didn’t turn out so badly!” he cheers. “Don’t worry about what she said. Undyne can be stubborn sometimes, but I’m sure you guys can make peace and be friends one day!”

You look at the spear on the ground. It’s almost completely covered by snow. And the words of that monster can’t seem to get out of your head for some reason. You wonder why she stopped fighting. Why she let you go. She must hate you, and she must have felt just how much you wanted to kill her. Did she do it because of Papyrus?

“Uh… Maybe we should keep the puzzles for another time and go home,” Papyrus suddenly says. “It’s getting late. And I don’t want to miss Mettaton’s show.”

He takes your hand and you follow him to his house without saying a word.

***

You’re sitting on the floor next to the couch, where Papyrus and Sans are fighting over the TV remote. You haven’t touched you food tonight, not hungry for some reason. And the burnt-frozen spaghetti wasn’t tempting anyway. No matter how much you try, you can’t stop recalling Undyne’s words, replaying the scene over and over in your mind, trying to figure out what felt so wrong in it. You can’t help but feel like you’re missing something. Something very important and very simple, but every time you think you get closer to it, the feeling just escapes again, hiding somewhere deep in the dark corners of your messed-up brain. It’s like trying to remember a painful memory. You want to know, but you’re afraid of being hurt.

“Ah, it’s starting!” Papyrus screams excitedly. The television screen starts to flash and an annoying music plays, as voices announce the beginning of the show. “This one is my favorite.”

You glance at the screen. It’s some kind of quiz show, where the participant is asked several questions. The announcer appears to be some sort of rectangular-shaped robot.

“Now, it’s time for the first question! Will our guest manage to answer it correctly? I don’t know about you, beauties, but I’m getting excited about this! Alright, question: How many faces does a cube have? Now, no cheating by looking at me, darling!”

“Wow, that’s a tough one…” Papyrus sighs, looking really focused on finding the answer.

You look at your Rubik’s cube resting on the floor. You know the answer. It’s easy. It’s: “Six.”

The audience applauses at the contestant’s right answer, and lights flashes on the screen. You keep looking down, playing with your cube by slowly rolling it on the floor. It’s only seconds later that you notice the two skeletons are staring at you, and you realize you have said the answer out loud at the same time the person on TV did.

“Did… Did they just talk???” Papyrus exclaims. “Wowie! It’s the first time I even hear you say anything!”

“Man, did you think they couldn’t talk or something?” the other guy laughs.

“Well, I wouldn’t know! They never answer when I try talking to them!! Human, try saying my name!”

You turn your back on them, looking down and feeling flustered for some reason. You didn’t mean to say the answer out loud… It was just an automatic reaction. It’s all because of those puzzles things… You spent way too much time on them. Much more than you intended to, in fact… You don’t even know why, it’s so stupid, why do something that will only bring more pain? Now it’s making you curious. It’s making you want to know about things you don’t understand… to remember things you are not supposed to.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i should really write a better summary for this fanfic...

The flower comes that night again. It sits on you and talks for a while, whispering in the dark. Reminding you what you have to do. Asking if you aren’t failing to kill the skeletons on purpose, just because your life is starting to get a little comfortable. You try to ignore it, but can’t. It says it will offer its help if things ever go the wrong way. You close your eyes and try your best to fall asleep.

***

When you wake up, you smell something coming from the kitchen, but it’s different than usual. No smell of burning, or scent of tomato at all. Actually it’s… rather nice? Like something sugary. You try to peek at where it’s coming, but it seems no one is in the kitchen at the moment.

“Oh, human! You’re awake!!”

Papyrus come from upstairs and glance at the kitchen with an annoyed face.

“My brother has decided to bake something, apparently,” he grunts. “He started doing that, lately, but he always makes weird stuff. Don’t mind that, I’ll cook you something better if it turns bad! Nyeh heh heh heh!!”

You peek at the kitchen again, wondering if you will get to taste that thing. You don’t believe it can be any worse than the terrible pasta that make your stomach ache every time you eat them. But if the other guy is the one that baked it… You find that rather suspicious. It could be poisoned, or something.

Papyrus soon leaves the house and you work on your Rubik’s cube to pass the time, still sitting on the couch, your blanket over your knees. When he’s back, the small guy is with him.

“Hey,” he suddenly starts, looking at you. “Shouldn’t we, like, give this one a bath or something? It’s been a week, and they haven’t even changed clothes once. Just saying.”

Papyrus turns over and stares at you, his face completely blank. Then, all of a sudden, he starts making a “oh no, I just remembered!” kind of surprised expression.

“Sans, I never expected those words to come from _your_ mouth, but… you’re right! How terrible for me to forget about that!! Alas, even the greatest of greatest makes mistakes sometimes… Human! I, Papyrus, shall lead you to the bathroom right away!”

You grunt when he approaches, but he manages to catch you anyway. You don’t remember seeing a bathroom in their house before, but it turns out they do have one. It’s pretty simple, but it has a bathtub. You wait quietly with Papyrus until it’s filled to the top with water. A plastic duck was floating on the surface, but quickly disappeared inside an overflowing cloud of bubbles.

“Here, done! Now, I’ll let you some privacy and find clean clothes for you to wear!!”

Papyrus closes the door behind him and you stay on your knees doing nothing. You wait for a while, poking at the bubbles with your fingers, still sitting on the bare floor. After a minute or two, Papyrus knocks on the door and enters again.

“Hey!! I brought you clo… Wait, why are you still not bathing??”

You look at him with a puzzled face.

“Don’t tell me you don’t like bathes!” he shouts. “I’m sorry, but… This is for your own good. And also, for mine. Because having one dirty brother in this house is enough! “

You frown when you see him coming closer and you quickly try to step back, but Papyrus is faster. You feel his hand grabbing the collar of your shirt and before you can make out what’s happening, your feet leave the ground and your whole body is plunged into the hot water, still fully clothed.

“Now, stay in here for a while, and then you can wear these cool clothes! They were mine, by the way. But you probably figured that out at the word ‘cool’! Nyeh heh heh!”

He points at the pile of clothes he’s left here before, and you can do nothing but stare at him, angry and confused, before he closes the door again.

***

When you come out of the bathroom half an hour later, the living room is filled with the scent of the thing baking in the oven earlier. The clothes Papyrus gave you are a little too large for you, especially the shirt—it’s white and has the words “chilled to the bone” on it—but you don’t really mind. Said Papyrus seems to be out again, but the other guy is here, wearing oven gloves and holding a dish in his hands. He looks at you with his usual awkward smile and sets the plate on the table. It’s some sort of pie.

“Hey, kid. Good job in enduring my brother’s spaghetti for so long. Thought you’d drop dead after a day or two, but I guess he has improved a little.”

You give him your angriest stare. So he _did_ know that thing was not edible!

“Hey, don’t give me that look. Here, take a slice of pie.”

You look at the pastry reluctantly. It does smell good, but you don’t really want to eat something this guy has made. You finally decide that nothing can be worse than the spaghetti anyway, so you take that slice. If it kills you, you promise yourself to come back and choke him with it.

You take a bite. The taste is sweet, just as you guessed by the scent. It’s actually pretty good. You think you have tasted something like this before, although it was a bit different.

“Like it?” the small skeleton asks, smiling. “I couldn’t find all the ingredients, but I think it turned out pretty well.”

You take another bite and chew quietly, still not looking directly at the guy.

“Y’know, that recipe… I got it from a nice lady I met a while ago, from behind a door.”

You keep eating the pie, only half listening to him.

“Can’t really say we’re friends, and I don’t even know her name or her face, but… She laughs at my jokes, and we talk about stuff. So yeah. It’s kinda nice.”

You take another bite. Can’t he keep quiet for a while? What does this story even have to do with you…?

“Haven’t heard from her, lately, though. But I kinda get a feeling of what could have happened to her. Actually, maybe you can tell me.”

You glance at him, still eating the pie. You don’t get it. What is he talking about? You want him to leave you alone.

“You must have met her, since she lives in the ruins you came from. So tell me…” he pauses, closing his eyes for a few second. You look at him without understanding. But then he opens his eyes again, and they’re pitch black. “How did it feel… stabbing that nice lady to death?”

You stop. The small guy is still smiling, his eyes expressionless. You try to take another bite, but your hands are shaking suddenly. Recollection flashes in your head. The smell of freshly-baked pie, comforting words you paid no attention to. A smile. Someone taking you by the hand…

And then you stabbed it. You had so much blood on your hands, much more than you expected, and its soul lasted longer than the other monsters you had killed in the ruins. But there was more… It was… _She_ was talking to you, back then. What were her words? You can’t seem to remember them.

Of course, you wouldn’t. You weren’t even listening to her, were you?

The small guy leaves the living room and you find yourself alone again, the slice of pie still in your trembling hands. This… is wrong. This feeling, you don’t want it. It’s wrong, you can’t feel that! You try to stop remembering, but your hands won’t stop shaking and you feel something painful clutching your chest. Suddenly, you remember the mournful face of the monster with the blue skin you met yesterday, and the pain becomes even worse. You want it to stop! You were wrong to think that you had to remember! It was better not to feel anything!

Your head is dizzy all of a sudden, and your knees stop supporting you. You fall off and clench your chest, bending forward until your forehead touches the floor. You can’t shake off the feeling that something is terribly wrong. Something you did… No, something in you is just wrong. You can’t really pinpoint it, but it’s _wrong_.

You don’t know for how long you just stay here on your knees before you hear a voice and arms are circling around you.

“I knew it!!” you recognize Papyrus’ voice. “Sans, look at what you’ve done! Now your weird quiche has made the human sick!!!”

You are carried over to the couch and covered with warm blankets, and it’s the last thing you feel before falling asleep.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> receiving so many kudos and nice comments filled me with determination, so here's another chapter!

You have been awake for hours now, but you haven’t moved from the couch, still lying on your side and hidden under the blanket. You think you don't want to get up ever again. So even when Papyrus puts down a plate of spaghetti on the floor for you, or when the despicable small skeleton sits next to you on the couch to watch TV, pushing your feet away so that he can get more space, you stay completely still and silent.

Every hour or so, Papyrus comes back to try and get you to stand, talk, or eat something, but the other guy just tells him to let you be. Eventually, Papyrus stops bothering you, informing you that he understands if you want to stay alone for a while, and that you can call him if you ever need something. He leaves a sheet of paper next to the spaghetti plate, with a new puzzle on it that he apparently just thought of. He also puts your Rubik’s cube next to you on the couch before going away.

But you’re not in the mood for puzzles right now. In fact, what’s even the point of doing them anymore? It was a stupid idea to even try in the first place. You kick the cube away and hear it fall and roll on the floor. You don’t need that thing. You only need to think of a plan to make things better again. Kill those skeletons and get away from this house forever. You get the impression that killing something once more will make these painful feelings go numb again. That’s how it should be. Feeling nothing is best. Because, if you start thinking this way again—thinking that you’re doing the _wrong thing,_ even if you still don’t understand how it is wrong—then how could you keep on destroying everything?

Maybe if you stay like this for a while, doing nothing and thinking about nothing, everything will go back to how it was before and you can forget painful things again. You try closing your eyes. The clothes you were forced to wear yesterday have an alien scent of washing powder on them, but it’s not unpleasant.

Suddenly, you feel a weight on your hips and you raise your head just a little to peek at the other end of the couch. There is a pizza box on you; the small guy is apparently using you as a table now. Where and when did he even get that thing… no, you don’t care. He can just suit himself.

Seconds after that, you feel like something else is dropped on you, like a bottle or something. You try harder to keep your eyelids closed. But suddenly, something way heavier falls on you and you get your head out of your blanket again. This time, the small guy straight out put a pillow on you and is now half lying on it, holding his head with his hand. You give him a deadly stare and he just raises his head up a little, like he’s not even realizing what he’s doing.

“Woops, am I bothering you?” he innocently asks.

You just keep staring angrily at him and he does nothing but smile, ignoring you again to go back on watching his show. He’s probably trying to provoke you, but you won’t play his stupid little game. You pull the blanket over your face again and close your eyes. Of course, there’s no way you can sleep with someone squashing you like that, but you pretend you don’t care. You stay like that for a few minutes before the small skeleton starts talking again.

“You know, I’ve always thought you were a weirdo.”

What were you even expecting by listening to a guy like that? You try not to pay attention to what he’s saying next.

“I mean, from the beginning, it was like you weren’t even listening when someone was talking. At first, I just thought, maybe they’re just that kind of person. But it always bugged me, you know?”

You try to plug your ears with your hands, but it doesn’t work well enough.

“Because it didn’t feel like you were ignoring people on purpose either. Again, I thought you just needed to open a little to others. Make some friends, and stuff. But it felt wrong, too… And it got me thinking, maybe…”

He pauses for a while before starting over.

“Anyway, I wasn’t planning on doing anything, really. Even if you did kill my brother, it’s not like taking revenge would make him come back, right? And maybe you’d get to change after a while. But that’s the strange part… I got a weird feeling that even if I killed you, you’d just come back. Pretty crazy, huh?”

He’s saying it like he doesn’t know it’s true, but you know he does. You know it from the looks he gives you, whenever you try to do something.

“Now my brother, he just can’t give up on people, so I knew he’d try to help you too. And at first, I was only thinking of keeping my eye on you until you gave up or went away, but… I have to be honest with you, kid. I wasn’t expecting you to actually try and make so much progress.”

You are kind of taken aback. What is he saying, all of a sudden? You don’t understand anything anymore. You raise your head a tiny bit, just enough to see his face. He’s not looking directly at you, though.

“Here, you can eat what’s left,” he finally says, pushing the pizza box closer to you before getting up and leaving the room.

You wait for a few seconds, and then you sit. There is nothing left in the box but crusts so you kick it away, along with a half-empty soda bottle. You try to make out what just happened, but it doesn’t make any sense no matter how you think about it. Why is this guy sayings these things to you, after he was so mean yesterday? Is it just to confuse you? If that’s the case, it really worked, because you’re feeling kind of lost, right now.

You’re still trying to figure this out when you feel something poking at your ribs. You pull out the blanket and realize your Rubik’s cube is here, even though you were sure you threw it away before. It has a note on it, and you take it to read it. It says: “ **you really suck at this, don’t you?** ”

You put the note away and stare at the puzzle. It’s strange, but… you feel like giving it another try, now.

***

When Papyrus comes home and sees you sitting on the couch, your Rubik’s cube in your hands, he beams, but he doesn’t say anything, as if he didn’t want to disturb you.

The other guy comes down too after a while, and they argue about pointless things and make terrible jokes as usual. You don’t really listen to them, focusing on your puzzle only. There is something in this mood that soothes you, for some reason, and you feel calm for once. Even your habitual headache seems to have calmed down a bit.

But… there’s still a different kind of pain inside you. You would like to sort out those feelings, to give meaning to them. Again, you feel like something is terribly wrong, but you really can’t say what. The only thing you’re certain of is that you hate it.

 

The next morning, Papyrus decides all three of you should go build snowmen outside for some reason, and before you can figure out what’s going on, you’re standing outside in front of a large pile of snow, wearing a red padded jacket and a scarf so long it’s touching the ground. Surprisingly, the small skeleton is here too, but he doesn’t seem like he’s going to do anything. Papyrus, on the other side, looks very excited.

He told you that you could just watch for now, if you didn’t know how to build your own snowman yet, and that’s what you did. You sat on a rock and just stayed here, observing Papyrus rolling balls of snow around and sculpting them enthusiastically. You were better at home. At least it wasn’t cold, inside.

“Human! Come, look at this!!” Papyrus shouts.

You stand up and walk to where he’s standing. He seems to be hiding a pile of snow behind his back, and he’s grinning. Then, he steps aside and points the thing behind him with both arms.

“It’s you!!!” He screams excitedly.

You stare at the snowman. It’s just your size, and is shaped similarly to you. You… don’t know what you’re supposed to think of this.

“I know,” Papyrus says, a proud expression on his face. “You don’t know what to say in front of such artistic talent. It’s perfectly normal. You cannot simply put a word on what exceeds perfection itself. In fact, that would be because there is no existing word for it yet, if I dare say. To do it justice, one could only make up a new word to describe it. Something like… Papyrusesque.”

“It looks very good, bro,” the other guy praises.

You keep looking at the snowman in silence. Papyrus said it’s “you”, but it feels weird just thinking of it like this. It’s just like peeking at your reflection in the mirror. It’s never “you” that shows anymore—and it will never be again. You gave up on that right the very moment you decided you didn’t want responsibility.

“It’s not me,” you hear yourself saying.

The skeletons both look at you with surprise on their face. The small guy keeps quiet, like he’s thinking about something, as Papyrus tries to explain to you that it’s just made to look like you, so of course, it’s not you, strictly speaking. But that’s not what you meant…

“It’s not me…” you repeat, quietly.

The small guy is staring weirdly at you now, and you look down. You say nothing for the rest of the day.


	9. Chapter 9

Papyrus tries to make pancakes again today, and you wish you could say he has improved, but really, he hasn’t. You feel tempted to throw them at him like you did last time, but something makes you think that you shouldn’t. Instead, you just leave them in the plate and go back to your latest puzzle—a poorly drawn maze. You got your own clothes back today. They smell just like the others did now, and wearing clean clothes is… not bad, you have to admit it.

But you can’t seem to focus on your puzzles or anything today either. Ever since the small skeleton talked about the lady in the ruins, it’s been here, in your head, getting stronger and even more painful the more you try to remember.

You hear the door open and the small guy is back from who-knows-where again. He doesn’t even look at the burnt pancakes on the table and just sits on the couch.

“Sans!” Papyrus screams from the kitchen. “Have you been eating outside, again??”

“Nah, you know Grillby’s still closed.”

You find the exit of the maze and put your pencil down, peeking at the TV screen. There doesn’t seem to be anything airing at the moment, but the small guy still stays in front of it. You remember the monster in the armor all of a sudden. She said… the monsters you killed were “good guys”, you think. If they were good, does that make you bad…?

Sans is looking at you know, smiling like he always does. When he notices you’re watching, he turns his head and start talking to Papyrus, making jokes that are not funny again. You don’t understand that guy at all… He’s weird. First he kills you, then he tells you mean things that make you feel bad, and then he says you’re “making progress”. What is he expecting from you? You don’t get it…

You wish you knew what to do. You raise your head and look at the skeletons. Papyrus is standing next to the other guy and laughing very loudly at his own jokes now, and something hurts inside your chest and burns your throat again. Maybe the skeletons know… Maybe they’ll tell you, if you ask, and then you’ll understand… Papyrus catches your stare and stops talking to look at you with a surprised expression. The other guy is looking too, now, and they seem to be waiting for something.

You swallow and open your mouth hesitantly. This isn’t a good idea, and you know it, but… you just feel like you have to ask.

“Did I…” you start and stop again immediately. The skeletons are still looking at you, motionless, and you finally open your mouth again. “Did I do something bad…?”

You don’t even have to wait for an answer. Just saying the words out loud sort of made it very clear to you, that yes, you did something very, _very_ bad. Something you feel like you shouldn’t _ever_ have done. You don’t understand, but you know it now, as your head starts aching again, full of conflicted feelings.

While Papyrus is giving you an unsure look, you suddenly notice Sans staring at you, eyes fully open. He looks… astonished. But before you can think about it, Papyrus comes close to you and smiles hesitantly.

“It’s true that you did bad things…” he starts, “but you can still make up for it by doing good things instead!!”

“Why?” You ask.

Papyrus looks disconcerted.

“B… Because, if you do good things, it will make you feel happier inside, too!!”

But you have to destroy everything, you almost answer; but you stop. The other guy seems completely lost in thoughts, like he’s trying to figure something out, but you stop paying attention to him and try to think about what Papyrus said instead. You still don’t understand it, but what he’s saying… It just feels “right” for some reason.

You take your head in your hands. It’s right, but it’s wrong at the same time… No, in fact, it’s still completely wrong. You’re _supposed_ to destroy the world, remember? But now you’re starting to wonder… is this really what you wanted? What was it…? The reason you climbed Mount Ebott in the first place… wasn’t it because…?

Papyrus gives you a warm hug and you stop thinking about all this for the time being.

“You know what? I think I have the perfect story to cheer you up!! Just wait here until I come back with the book!”

Papyrus carries you in his arms and makes you sit on the couch. This is nice, you suddenly realize. Being here is nice. It’s not painful or hard or annoying. So you start to think, maybe you could stop. Just stay here and try to figure those feelings out, not having to fight anymore. Maybe after some time, that itch inside your head will go away by itself. Maybe you could be “happy” here…

No. There’s no way that could ever happen, you think to yourself as you peek at your reflection in the turned off TV screen. You try to move your hand and watch the reflected image move along. But no matter how you look at it, it’s still just me.

***

Night time comes and so does the flower. It sits on the floor and pokes your Rubik’s cube with the tips of its roots. You’re lying on your side and looking at it without saying a word.

“It’s been some time, now,” it eventually says. “Those skeletons just won’t let you be, huh? The tall one is so funny to watch. He doesn’t even know you killed him so many times already. I can’t wait to see his face when you do it again.”

You keep watching it roll the small cube around. Then the flower stops and looks at you with a weird, curious expression.

“Maybe I’m just imagining things, but you seem… different, lately.” It raises its head up a little to observe you. “I just want to make sure, but… You’re still Chara, right?”

You stay silent.

“Yeah, I know it’s a silly question. I trust you! I’m sure you have reasons not to do anything. You have a plan, don’t you? Don’t worry; I’ll be right here when you need me. That’s what best friends are for, right?”

It smiles in the creepiest way. You wish it would go away already.

Suddenly, the lights turn on and the flower quickly disappears. You sit and look at the stairs. It’s Sans. He’s giving you a weird look, sweat dripping from its skull.

“Hey, kiddo… Who were you talking to?”

Don’t say anything.

“Must have been hearing things,” he shrugs. “Or maybe… Say, I’ve been meaning to ask for some time, but… Are you…?”

He can’t end his sentence because Papyrus comes down next, looking sleepy and not fully awake.

“What are you two talking about?” He asks.

“Nothing,” the small guy lies. “Kid was too scared to fall asleep.”

“What? There is nothing to be afraid of, human! There are no ghosts in this house! Only skeletons!!”

You lie down again and hide completely under the blanket. A short silence follows, until you feel Papyrus sit next to you.

“Well, if you really can’t bear it, I guess I can keep you company until you fall asleep.”

 

Somehow, this ended up in you being squeezed between Papyrus and Sans, blanket over your knees, watching whatever is on TV at that time. Papyrus nearly instantly fell asleep and the other guy flicks channels every so often. The screen is giving you just enough light to continue your Rubik’s cube and you try to solve it for half an hour or so, stopping to watch TV from time to time to rest your mind before you go on trying again. The other guy doesn’t try to talk to you again.

You turn one last raw of your cube and the colors finally align. You stare at it, turning it around to make sure you haven’t made any mistake, but nothing seems weird with it. It’s hard to believe it’s finally complete, though, so you keep staring at it, so focused on it you almost jump when a hand pats your shoulder. You look up and Sans is smiling awkwardly, one of his eyes closed.

“Welp, it sure took you some time, but good job, kid.”

You look down at your puzzle again and something is warming you inside. You feel your lips stretch just a little, without being able to control it. It’s like… you’ve accomplished something. You’re the one who did it, without getting help, without someone ordering you to do it. It’s just a dumb puzzle, and yet…

“Guess I’m gonna crash now,” Sans says, getting up. “Night.”

He turns the TV off and walks away, waking Papyrus up and guiding him to his own room. It’s too dark for you to see the colors of it anymore, but you can’t stop staring at your Rubik’s cube for some reason. You don’t want to throw it away, even if it’s useless now, and you hold it tight in your hands.

But deep down, you know you’re just running away from the important stuff. You try not to think about it, but someday, you will have to face it. You can keep doing that for now, if that’s what you want, but you _know_ it will have to end. When the skeletons start to trust you, when they drop their guard, that’s when I’ll have to act once again. We will have to end this, you and me, together. And if you keep awakening those useless feelings you had thrown away, it will only become more and more painful for you, until you can’t bear it anymore. Just like before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise surprise... this was a first-person pov all this time


	10. Chapter 10

Despite not having slept much last night, you wake up way too early this morning. The house is oddly quiet when Papyrus is not around, and having completed your Rubik’s cube, you don’t have much to do to keep you busy now. You don’t find TV particularly interesting and the idea of not having anything to do is strangely irritating. You didn’t mind doing nothing before, and you’re not really sure what’s different now, but you find yourself wondering when Papyrus is going to wake up and give you new puzzles.

You walk around the living room in search of anything to keep you busy, but the skeleton’s house is pretty empty when you think about it. The only noticeable things are a weird false book on a table, and what Papyrus refers to as “Sans’ pet rock” but looks just like a regular rock to you.

Thinking about it, you have never been upstairs. Every time you tried climbing the stairs at night, Sans was here to send you right back to the living room. You wonder if it’s safe to go take a look by now.

You carefully climb the steps one by one, looking around to make sure Sans won’t pop up from nowhere and scare you, but it doesn’t seem he will. You’re in front of the first door—that you identified as Papyrus’ room after seeing him enter it many times—and you look hesitantly at the end of the corridor. You wonder if Sans really is asleep. Maybe if you go to his room instead, he will be fast asleep and defenseless. He wouldn’t have time to fight back…

You forget about this idea. He’s probably awake anyway, and you don’t want to take the risk. If you want to do things right, you’ll have to wait for the perfect opportunity. Besides, you don’t even feel like doing this right now, do you?

You open the door to Papyrus’ room and try to adjust your eyes to the dark. Soon enough, you can see him sleeping peacefully on a weird car-shaped bed. He’s still wearing his usual clothes, even to sleep, but you’re not one to talk. Maybe monsters just don’t know the concept of pajamas.

You climb up his bead and sit on him. He grunts a little and frowns, and you shake him a bit to make him wake up. Eventually, he opens his eyes and yawns before giving you a half-surprised, half-annoyed look.

“What is it, human?” He asks in a sleepy voice. “If you’re looking for spaghetti, you…”

You can’t make out the rest of what he’s saying, as he just mumbles incoherent words before falling asleep again. You frown and shake him once more, impatient, but it doesn’t seem like he’s going to wake up any time soon. Discouraged, you decide to let him be and look around instead. There’s a bookshelf and a computer, but you quickly turn away from those to go check something more interesting on the table near the bed.

On the table, you find several little figurines nicely displayed. They appear to be made of plastic—not solid enough to harm someone even if you threw it at them—and you grab one to observe it more closely. It’s hard to see it correctly in the dark, but it looks like a humanoid robot. Its arms and legs are moveable, too. Without thinking much about it, you take a couple more with you and go back downstairs, not caring to close the door behind you when you leave the room.

***

You are startled by a scream about an hour later. It’s coming from Papyrus’ room.

“Sans!” he shouts, and you hear his footsteps coming closer. “Have you touched my action fig… AH!”

He had just arrived downstairs when he freezes completely, eyes wide open. At first, you think he’s staring at you, but soon you realize he’s actually looking at the toys on the floor beside you.

You had tried figuring out what use you could make of the small figurines, but soon you decided they weren’t interesting at all, so you just left them here. Now, Papyrus is rushing to grab them and the look on his face becomes horrified.

“It’s broken!” he exclaims, holding a figurine in one hand, and its broken arm in the other. Oh, right. This one couldn’t move like the others, so you had tried forcing it until it broke, before throwing it away with the others. “What… What have you done…?”

The tone of his voice surprises you. Is he mad because you stole those things from him, or because you broke one? They weren’t even useful… You feel annoyed. It’s not fair that he’s angry at you because of those stupid things! You haven’t done anything wrong! In fact, it’s his fault for not waking up and giving you something to do. And yet, he’s still looking at the broken toy like it’s the most important thing in this house.

“W… Well,” he says after a while. “I’m sure it was an accident, so…”

You get up and steal the robot figurine from his hands, before violently throwing it against the wall. Its head comes off from the shock.

“What are you doing?!” Papyrus screams at you. “Don’t do that!! It’s bad, human, very bad!”

You frown at him. You don’t like being scolded.

“Don’t you feel sad for them?” The skeleton asks.

Why would you feel that? It’s not even alive. It doesn’t care if it’s being broken down. Why should you feel bad about that? You turn your back on him and go sit in a corner, sulking. You pay no attention to Sans, who has just arrived in the living room as well. You didn’t do anything wrong… It’s not like the monsters in the ruin… It’s just a stupid toy, who cares about that…!

“Aw man, look at what you’ve done,” you hear Sans say.

“It’s fine!” Papyrus interrupts. “I’ll just… uh… Go outside, to… do some things.”

You turn just a little and you see Papyrus leaving the house, a weird, saddened expression on his face. Is he feeling bad…? But you didn’t do anything to _him_ … Still, you start feeling anxious now.

“He really loves these, too…” Sans adds. “I bet he’s feeling terrible now. Welp. Nothing we can do about it.”

You look at him, not sure you understand, but he just sits on the couch, giving you no further explanation. You go pick up the decapitated toy and look at it intensely, as if staring long enough would help you find an answer. Would Papyrus feel better if it wasn’t broken? Sans said… Papyrus “loves” this thing, so that should mean he doesn’t want it broken. You don’t want to lose the things you love. Even you can understand that, somehow. Although the feeling is gone, you still have knowledge of it. If you try and think about it a little, it’s pretty obvious, actually. You just didn’t bother thinking about it before, but now you’re starting to care about what _other people_ feel. What a stupid thing to do. Caring about others will only bring regret and sadness. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

You try to force the pieces back together, but of course, they won’t stick. You desperately bring them to Sans.

“Fix it,” you ask.

“Sorry kiddo. Nothing I can do.”

You look at the broken action figure and then at Sans again.

“Fix it!” You say again, louder.

“You can’t always fix broken things,” he says in a quiet tone. “That’s just how it is.”

You sit down on the bare floor and stare at the toy. You can’t fix it… That’s wrong. You could still go back and redo everything—that’s what you’re thinking, right? But think about it. When was the last time you felt determined? When was your last “save point”? You would have to go back from the beginning. Spare the skeleton, and earn their trust again. That would take days—weeks maybe. That just won’t do. I’m not that patient.

Still, you really want to do something about this. You look desperately at Sans again, but he shakes his head negatively. You try to stick the pieces back together again—it won’t work. You want to go back. You want to undo this. It’s a feeling similar to what you feel when you think about the monsters you killed. Painful, ineffaceable guilt. “You can’t always fix broken things”, Sans has said. Does that mean you will have to feel that way forever? You don’t want that… I told you those feelings were pointless. You should just throw them away again.

“Are you feeling bad about this?” Sans asks you out of the blue.

You nod.

“Then you should apologize to him.”

You look up and Sans is smiling. Apologize… Will that make things better? But that won’t fix the toy… You can’t fix things just by saying sorry. It doesn’t make sense.

 

You don’t know for how long you just stay here, thinking about all this, but suddenly, the door opens and you jump. You don’t want to face Papyrus. There is no way you can repair what you have done. Maybe he despises you now. Maybe he will never forgive you for breaking the thing he loves. He will just hate you forever.

You feel his hand pat your shoulder and you jump again, but then you slowly turn over. Surprisingly, Papyrus is smiling. He’s holding something in his other hand, and when he opens it, you see a tiny robot toy. It’s not humanoid and sexy-looking like the ones Papyrus had—this one is more similar to the robots you could see in cartoons, with a square-shaped head and rectangular limbs.

“Since you seemed to like these, I went to the garbage dump and found one for you too!” he says enthusiastically. “It’s not as cool as mines, but this one should be harder to break, so you can play with it to your heart’s content!”

You don’t understand. Is he not mad at you…? As you stay still, he puts the robot toy in your hand and takes the broken pieces of the old one instead. Then, he gives you a pat on the head and walks away.

“Man, you shouldn’t spoil the kid so much,” you hear Sans laugh.

“I am not spoiling them! And even if I did, it would still be better than what you do for them. Which is: absolutely nothing at all!!! You can’t even cook them proper food!”

“Can’t argue with that.”

“Really, you two are lucky to have someone as great and responsible as me to take care of you!”

“We sure are, bro.”

He starts laughing and Papyrus sighs before turning over you again. He stares at you for a while before talking, his voice hesitant.

“Human? Are you alright? You haven’t been moving at all since I…”

Two drops fall on the robot toy in your hands, and your eyes feel watery all of a sudden. Papyrus goes completely silent. It’s weird… This is so weird… Why…

Why are you crying?

You try to close your eyes to make it stop but something is squeezing you inside and you can’t hold it, whatever it is. You burst into tears, unable to stop yourself. Your shoulders start shaking and you try to wipe your eyes but it’s only making it worse, so you give up and start crying loudly.

“H… Human?!!” Papyrus screams. He looks completely panicked, although you can barely see his face now with all those tears in your eyes. “What is wrong? Do you not like it? Is something hurting you?! Are you crying because you’re hungry???”

He keeps asking what is wrong, but his voice is soon covered by your cries.

“Just let them cry,” you barely hear Sans say. “It’s normal for kids to cry for no reason once in a while.”

“Are you sure??”

“Yeah, don’t worry. They’ll calm down after a while.”

“Then… I shall make their favorite spaghetti for them in the meantime!! Good food always cheers you up!”

You hear him rush over the kitchen and you wipe your face with your sleeve again, only to start crying even louder.

“It’s alright, kid,” Sans says, closing his eyes and smiling as usual. “Just let everything out.”


	11. Chapter 11

At the beginning of the afternoon, your eyes are red and burning, and you feel exhausted even though you haven’t done anything but cry and sob. You ate the food Papyrus cooked for you; you didn’t have much of an appetite, but you really weren’t in the mood of turning him down. It didn’t help making you feel better, but it appeased you a little.

After that, Papyrus decided you needed some space to put your things on, and he brought a small table near the couch and set your robot toy, the solved Rubik’s cube, and a pile of clean shirts on it. He then used tape to stick to the wall a sheet of paper with the words “HUMAN’S THINGS” on it, as well as an arrow pointing down. You didn’t think much of it at first, but then, every time you set your eyes on it, it made you feel a little warm inside.

Papyrus then proceeded to repair the broken figurine with some glue, and you immediately felt irritated finding out that Sans had lied about not being able to fix it—but you were mostly relieved that it could be repaired at all. It didn’t look as good as before, but it was back in one piece and Papyrus seemed satisfied with it.

Because of all what happened today, Papyrus told you he hadn’t have time to make a new puzzle for you; instead, he gave you paper and crayons and told you to try drawing something.

You were a little disturbed by this, as you had absolutely no idea of what you were supposed to draw. Papyrus didn’t mention anything else and you had no clue of what he wants. It’s been almost ten minutes now, but you haven’t managed to figure it. It’s not like solving a puzzle. There is no mapped out answer to find now.

You end up walking to Papyrus with the blank sheet of paper in your hands and give him a confused look.

“What do I draw?” You ask, hoping for a simple answer.

“Whatever you want!” he says—this is not a simple answer at all. “You can draw the things you like, or draw something you saw that caught your attention! Of course, I wouldn’t mind being your model, if that’s what inspires you. Nyeh heh heh heh!!”

You look down and try to think about this. The things you like? You don’t know if you have anything like that… Oh, but there’s your Rubik’s cube. You hurry back to your corner of the room and sit in front of the table with your things on it, before you start to draw the little cube. It takes you a while to trace all the tiny squares and color them. When you’re finally done, you go show it to Papyrus.

“That’s good!” he praises. “You didn’t even need to take my drawing lessons! Keep the good work!!”

He returns to his business in the kitchen and you look at your drawing again. It’s pretty simple, and there is a lot of space left blank. You don’t think it is actually that great. So you start drawing other things on it. At first, you just pick the first things that appear in your line of sight; the robot toy, a book, a pillow… And when all the space is occupied, you start doing the same thing on another sheet of paper.

When you’re out of simple things to draw, you try doing a portrait of Papyrus. When he notices you’re looking at him, he sort of swells out his chest and blushes a little. He looks like he’s trying very hard to pretend he hasn’t noticed, though, but you can see him peek over every few seconds.

This time, your drawing doesn’t look very much like the original. You’re a bit disappointed and you try drawing him again, but the result is close to the first one. You then try drawing Sans, not forgetting to add tiny blue drops of sweat on his head. Somehow, not having him in front of you makes it harder for you to know how to draw him. When you’re done, he looks a bit weird and you get the feeling that something is wrong with the proportions. Drawing is harder than you thought it would be.

 

You keep drawing all day long, until night comes and Papyrus tells you to go to sleep. You have filled dozens of sheets with various drawings, that are now everywhere on the floor. Looking at them, you feel some sort of pride. It’s not as fulfilling as puzzles, but this is also an accomplishment in a way. You hop to the couch and lie on it, feeling strangely satisfied with yourself.

You look at Sans, who seems to be trying to find a path to cross the room without stepping on your drawings. He’s looking at them with a curious expression on his smiling face. Eventually, he picks one and stares at it for a while.

“Heh, you must really like that flower,” he says, putting the drawing on the floor again. “You’ve drawn it like five times.”

“I haaaaate it,” you yawn. “I want it to go away.”

Sans gives you the weirdest look, but you don’t pay attention to him anymore, too tired to care.

 

You see strange dreams that night. Memories of the past, yours and mine tangled together as always. They’re blurry and confusing every time, but those memories don’t really matter anymore. But this time, the skeletons appear in your dream, too. You see them both, waiting for you in the mist. You don’t want to come closer, as you know too well what will happen when you reach them, but you can’t control your legs. You watch yourself killing them over and over again, unable to stop, replaying the scene endlessly. You want to scream, to tell them to run away, but the words won’t come out of your mouth.

When you wake up in the middle of the night, you are shaking and covered in sweat. You take a look at your trembling hands. Although you see nothing on them, you can’t shake away the feeling of having your palms covered in blood and sticky dust.

 

For the next three days, the flower doesn’t come, and that makes you a little uneasy. You spend the days quietly, solving new puzzles, listening to Sans’ lame jokes and eating awful pasta. Papyrus has hanged some of the drawings you made on the fridge with small magnets. The more you look at them, the more they seem terrible, but maybe that’s not important after all. Either way, when the world disappears, everything will go away with it. There won’t be anything left to feel bad about, too. All the things we have done will be erased, and you can stop feeling guilty all the time. Even that flower you don’t like will be gone forever. Wouldn’t that be great?

 

On the following day, the skeletons make you wear warm clothes and that long scarf again and take you outside. The town is still deserted, and you walk to an area not far from where you made the snowmen the other day. Papyrus then tells you to wait until he finishes updating his puzzle and you sit on a rock, observing him as he moves things around.

Suddenly, something cold hits your jaw and you jump. It looks like you got hit by a snowball. You stare at Sans, who is standing not far away, but he pretends he doesn’t notice you. He’s smiling though, and you know he’s the one who did that. You discretely grab some snow and form a ball in your hands to throw it at him while he’s not looking. Of course, he evades it easily, still looking away and playing dumb. You give it another try, but right when you throw the snowball, it vanishes from your field of sight and comes hit you in the back of the head. You grunt.

“Sans!!!” you hear Papyrus scold. “Stop playing tricks to the human!!”

“Bro, I’m innocent,” he responds, holding his hands up. “Look, I haven’t been moving a bone. Besides, you know I wouldn’t have the _heart_ to do that. Literally.”

Sans’ smile grows wider and Papyrus looks pretty upset.

“I can’t believe this!!” he screams. “Why did you even come here?!”

“Come one, stop _skull_ king.”

“I am not ‘skullking’, and that joke was terrible!!!”

He returns to his puzzle and you see Sans giggle, hands in the pockets of his jacket. You wait for a few seconds before throwing another snowball at him, but it’s like he’s got eyes in is back.

“You’re gonna have to put a little more _backbone_ into it if you wanna win, kid.”

You shrug angrily and turn your back to him.

“Giving up already? Well, it’s less tiring for me that way.”

You kick some snow with your foot. What’s this feeling? This frustration… It makes you want to keep trying. Like with the puzzles. Now that you think about it, Sans was always mocking you when you were giving up, too… Was he doing it to make you try harder? No, that couldn’t be right. He’s just being a jerk.

You decide to give it another try, just because seeing his face when you hit him with a snowball would definitely be worth it. Jumping on your feet, you bend a little to grab a handful of snow and throw it at him again. Then, without giving him time to fight back, you hurry and prepare some snowballs that you start to pile next to you. When you think you have enough ammo, you raise your head to prepare for your next attack, only to be hit right in the face by another snowball.

“Oh, are you two doing a snowball fight??!” You hear Papyrus exclaim from a distance. “Let me in! I, the great Papyrus, shall show you the prowess of a future royal guardsman!!”

He runs over to join the fight, and what was originally just a little quarrel between you and Sans ended up in a game that lasted for hours. Sans actually gave up pretty fast, saying that moving around was too tiring and that he would go take a nap at the counter behind, so the fight was mostly between Papyrus and you in the end. But, occasionally, the two of you would team up and try to get him. Of course, it always resulted in failure, but even then, it wasn’t that frustrating or annoying. When you were both too exhausted to continue, you let yourself fall in the snow and didn’t move from here, trying to catch your breath. You don’t know at what point you started smiling, and without even realizing it, you even laughed a few times.

This was nice. No… It was more than that. It was _fun_. And it was an incredibly heartwarming and enjoyable feeling.


	12. Chapter 12

When you go to sleep that night, you feel that something is slightly wrong with your throat and your nose, but you don’t really pay attention to it until the next morning.

But when you wake up with a burning forehead, a runny nose and an aching throat, you wish you had paid attention. It was an obvious development that after all these hours you spent playing in the snow yesterday you would eventually get sick, but you were probably having too much fun to think about it.

When Papyrus notices that you don’t touch your food and don’t move from the couch, your blanket wrapped around yourself, he spends minutes asking you what is wrong. When he finally lets you speak, you tell him that you have caught a cold and he doesn’t seem to get it at first. Do skeletons never get sick? No, that’s unlikely. But maybe they catch different sort of diseases. You can’t really imagine them suffering from the cold, as they have no skin to feel the temperature in the first place. Or maybe they do, but it’s not so important right now.

After a while, Sans gets downstairs and asks why Papyrus is making such a ruckus.

“The human appears to be sick!” Papyrus says loudly.

“Welp. That’s too bad.”

“Shouldn’t we do something??”

“Don’t ask me, I’m not a human expert. And I don’t think there’s anyone left in town to help. They probably just need some rest anyway.”

Papyrus gives you a worried look before rushing upstairs to find more blankets. You don’t like the way he said it, but Sans is probably right; your cold doesn’t seem really bad. It will probably be cured by tomorrow if you stay in bed. You are soon covered in way too many blankets that you need and you try to fall asleep again.

You hate being sick. When you cut your hand days ago, it didn’t bother you much, but now it’s almost unbearable. Back then, you probably wouldn’t have minded not being able to do anything but lie in bed—if you can call that old couch a bed. Now, you want to do things. You want to go outside and do another snowball fight with Papyrus; or sit on the floor and solve puzzles, listening to Sans and Papyrus argue for silly reasons and make stupid jokes. Staying under your blanket like this, cold and shivering and _bored_ —it’s not funny at all.

 

You’re not sure at what point you fall asleep, but you regret waking up again so soon. You still feel terrible and you can’t stop sneezing. You notice someone has left a box of tissues next to you and you’re grateful for that, but your head hurts and you still don’t feel like doing anything.

“Oh, human!” Papyrus shouts when he sees you. “You’re awake!! Do you want to eat something?”

You shake your head and he looks disappointed.

“Oh. It’s all right! What about a nice story, then?”

You look up and stare at him curiously. He’s carrying a book in his hands. Right, you remember he had tried reading something to you the first nights you slept here. You never paid attention to what he said back then, but now, you are a little interested. It can’t be worse than doing nothing.

The books Papyrus reads you are overall pretty childish; stories about friendship, adventures and brave characters facing small dangers to help others. They’re not really interesting or exciting, and probably meant to be read to younger children, but listening to Papyrus’ voice appeases you somehow. It’s a weird feeling. Like something you needed for a very, very long time without realizing it—and although you can’t appreciate it as you should now, you’re still happy to finally have it.

 

You must have felt asleep at some point, because when you’re conscious again, Papyrus is not sitting next to you anymore. You feel dizzy, but your throat is not as painful as before and your headache seems to have calmed down a bit. You might still have a slight fever, though, because your thoughts are messy and you can’t concentrate on anything.

For a moment, you wonder where Papyrus and Sans have gone, but then you hear voices coming from upstairs and it reassures you. You don’t want to stay alone right now. But as you grab a tissue to blow your nose, you suddenly hear a sound outside.

You wonder what it could be. The only person you can think of is that blue-skinned monster wearing a heavy armor and for a second, you fear that she has come to put an end to you. Maybe she has overheard that you were sick, somehow, and she wants to seize that opportunity to fight you. You stand up; your balance is a little off, but you don’t think you will faint. You hesitantly walk to the door and open it, but you don’t see anyone outside. Maybe it was just your imagination…

Just as you were about to go back inside, you see something move in the snow. It’s not as big as a person… maybe an animal or something? Curious, you come closer, not minding the cold snow on your bare feet. If it’s a monster, remember you’ll have to kill it. You need all the EXP you can; you can’t afford to spare anything.

When you finally reach the thing moving in the snow, you freeze. It’s a small dog, with fur so white that you almost didn’t spot it with all this snow around. It’s looking at you with curious small eyes, its tongue out. It doesn’t look like it will give you a lot of EXP, but it’s an easy target at least. Even in your current state, it would probably be a child’s play to kill it.

You automatically try to reach out for your knife before you remember it’s been taken from you a long time ago. You glance around, searching for something that you could use as a weapon, but suddenly the dog comes closer and it distracts you. You sit on your knees and observe the small creature. It’s sniffing you innocently—it doesn’t look like it has bad intentions… is this thing really a monster? It doesn’t matter. Any living thing will give you EXP when you kill it.

But instead of looking for a weapon as you should, you reach for its side with your hand and touch its fur. It’s soft and funny, and the dog’s body is moving slightly along with its breathing. You can feel its fast heartbeat under your palm. It’s… warm. _Alive_.

You have seen so many dogs like this one on your way to town, days ago. Were they all like that? Would they have rubbed their head against the palm of your hand if you had let them the chance to? No… It’s not only the dogs. All these monsters you have slain without a second thought… they were alive, too. Did they like puzzles? Would they have done snowball fights and built snowmen with you if you’d asked?

You will never find out anymore. Your hands start shaking. You will never know, because you killed them before you could ask. You turned them into dust—turned them into _nothing_. They can never feel bored or hungry or happy anymore. You. Killed. Them.

Your hear footsteps hurrying toward you but you don’t turn over. Slowly, you sink your hands in the thick fur of the dog. You can see Papyrus and Sans rushing through the door.

“Human!” you hear Papyrus scream. “Don’t hurt it!!”

They come closer but then they stop. You rest your forehead against the dog’s soft and warm head. It gives you a gentle push and licks your neck. It tickles.

You feel tears run down your cheeks, disappearing into the dog’s immaculate fur. You remember now… you remember everything. You understand now why you should feel guilty. Why what you’ve done felt so terribly wrong. How could you forget something so obvious? It’s such a simple feeling, simple enough to be described by just one word—sadness… and yet, it’s so unbearably agonizing.

A boney hand pats your shoulder and the small dogs wriggles out of your arms to run away. You look up, your vision blurry.

“Come back inside, kiddo” Sans says in a gentle tone. “We have things to talk about.”

You nod firmly and reach out for his hand.


	13. Chapter 13

You’re sitting on the couch, blankets all over you. Papyrus brings you a mug of hot cocoa to warm you up. You take it in your hands and appreciate the heat, but you don’t feel like drinking it. Sans is sitting next to you, observing you with a curious look on his face. You don’t know what to say, but you’re feeling uneasy.

“Hey bro,” Sans suddenly says, “I just remembered that the plants growing in Waterfall can cure human diseases.”

“Sans, you bonehead!! Why haven’t you said so before?!! I will go and get some immediately!”

Papyrus doesn’t wait for Sans to answer before he leaves the house, slamming the door.

“Heh, he really wants to help you get better,” Sans says with a smile. “It’s a lie, though. I thought it’d be better to have our little chat alone.”

You don’t face him, still holding the mug in your hands. You don’t want to talk. You’re scared of what he will ask.

“So, wanna start?” He asks, his expression the same as usual.

You stay silent.

“Fine, then I’ll just talk by myself.”

He leans against the back of the couch, looking in front of him instead of staring at you. For some reason, it makes you just a little more comfortable. And then, as he said, he starts talking.

“So a few days ago, I saw this weird human kid next to the entrance of the ruins. They were kind of creepy, and they didn’t even react to my cool jokes. Honestly, it was hard to tell if they were actually human at all.”

You keep staring at the mug. It’s already getting colder in your hands.

“After they’d come, the monsters around kind of disappeared one after another. Everyone in town started to freak out and run away, spreading rumors about a human kid killing monsters. But my brother… well, you know him by now. He still wanted to give the human a chance; to try and put some reason into them. But… I kinda felt it wouldn’t go his way. Every time I saw the human kid, they seemed like someone who wouldn’t listen, no matter what you say to them.”

You swallow. Memories of you killing Papyrus flow inside your head. It hurts to remember that, now.

“But when they got to him, surprisingly, they didn’t kill him.”

Of course. Sans wouldn’t remember all the times you reset. It’s only making you feel more guilty.

“Although I got the feeling from the look on their face that it’s not all there is to say about this matter. Because they didn’t look the same as they did a few minutes ago. They seemed angrier.”

Sans pauses for a few seconds and you wish he would stop talking now. You don’t want to remember these things. You don’t want Sans to remember them either. You don’t want him to hate you again.

“It’s weird to say this, but… I thought it was a good thing.”

You raise your head, surprised.

“I mean, feeling angry is a proof that they could FEEL something, right? And if they could feel that, then maybe they could start experiencing more feelings after some stimulation. Frustration, pride, boredom—those were easy to trigger. And as they started to recover their emotions, more started to follow. Eventually, they even seemed to feel guilt and empathy.”

You realize that Sans is staring at you now and you look down again.

“But this doesn’t make much sense… Why would someone do things that they’d regret and feel guilty about in the first place? If they weren’t _feeling_ anything before, what was driving them to act like they did? Who was telling them what to do?”

You clench your fists on the mug until it hurts. You want him to stop. You want to run. He has a creepy smile on his face now, and he won’t stop staring.

But…

Is he really staring at _you_ , right now?

“Kid,” he abruptly says, his tone sharp and cold. “Who really are you?”

It’s funny. The way he’s smiling and speaking… It’s almost like he’s _talking to me_.

Ignoring what I think, you raise your head and look at him. It’s not like you to act on your own. He’s not talking to you, so you shouldn’t answer. Actually, no one is ever talking to you. It’s just something that you started to assume lately, but it’s wrong. It’s not your body anymore, remember? Just because you can control it doesn’t mean that you have all the rights.

But you want it back… don’t you? You want to be yourself again. Now that you’ve regained all those forgotten, useless emotions, you want to have your little fun and be happy again. But you’re wrong to think that everything is going to be okay, just because you think you got yourself some friends.

Let me say it one last time. If you start to rebel against me… you’re going to regret it.

“Sans…” you whisper, your voice trembling. “Is it okay to be me again?”

It’s going to hurt.

“I want to stop doing bad things…”

There will be no turning back this time. No more running away. You will be responsible for every one of your acts. You will be responsible for everything.

“Can you…” Your voice cracks. “Can you help me?”

Your hands start shaking and you almost spill the content of your mug but Sans catches it at the last second and takes it off your hands before setting it on the floor. His eyes are wide open in surprise and he’s not smiling anymore. You look down again. You’re starting to regret it. He has no reason to help you or trust you. He shouldn’t anyway, right? He’ll get hurt too if he gets close to you. You know it, and yet you selfishly ask for his help anyway.

Suddenly, Sans gently puts a hand on your shoulder and you don’t leave him time to say anything before you practically throw yourself into his arms, hugging him tight. He doesn’t move for a few seconds, and then you feel his arms hesitantly hug you back. You don’t care if you look stupid or desperate. You just want to rest your forehead against his chest and stay like this for a while.

“It’s okay, kid,” Sans finally says in a quiet voice. “Just do what you wanna do. We’ll keep you safe.”

You sob and you hug him tighter. Sans pats your back awkwardly, like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands. It’s a bit weird, but this is fine. This is fine…

 

Papyrus comes back after a while, out of breath and empty-handed. He starts yelling at Sans, saying that he forgot to tell him what kind of plant he was supposed to look for. Sans then tells him that he remembered it wrong, and Papyrus spends the next hour scolding him for his clumsiness.

You feel much better than before now; you’re pretty sure you don’t have a fever anymore and you’re suddenly full of energy. You eat an entire plate of awful spaghetti and that seems to convince Papyrus that you’re well enough to leave the couch, so he gives you paper and crayons to keep yourself occupied.

You can’t stop smiling. You catch your reflection on the black TV screen and it looks like you again. You’re not afraid anymore. No matter what happens, Sans and Papyrus will be here to help you, so it’s okay to be yourself again. At least, that’s the feeling you get.

***

The next day, you feel completely cured. Papyrus won’t let you go out yet, just in case, so you spend the afternoon inside quietly.

Sans is acting slightly different now. His attitude towards you seems more… relaxed. You wonder if that’s because you talked with him. You didn’t even say much, but maybe that was enough. Maybe he understood, somehow…

When you go to sleep that night, you realize that you haven’t felt that itching and painful sensation inside your head in a while.

 

It’s morning again and you’re sitting on the floor drawing while Sans is watching TV when Papyrus rushes downstairs.

“Oh, you’re both here!” he exclaims. “Perfect! I’ve been wanting to tell you about my great idea!”

“What is it?” Sans asks, smiling as usual.

“I think we should make expansions to this house!! The human cannot sleep on the couch forever, and they need some space and privacy as well, so… we should build another room!! What do you think? Is that not a wonderful idea???”

“It’s a pretty cool idea, bro,” Sans says, “but you should ask the human what they think of it.”

Papyrus turns to look at you, and you stop drawing to listen to him. He looks very excited.

“Human, what do you think?!”

You stare blankly at him. A… room? For you? You don’t know what you’re supposed to think of that. But, having you own room in this house, it would almost be like…

_Almost be like you were a family._

“I…” you start hesitantly. “Y… Yes, that’s… okay.”

Papyrus beams and you feel heat rushing over your face.

“Then it’s settled!! Wowie, this is going to be awesome!”

You look down; your lips tremble a bit and start to form a tiny smile. A room… They want to build a room for you. They want you to stay here with them. Not me, not anyone else—you.

 

Maybe that’s all you ever wanted, in the end. People to take care of you when you’re sick, to read you bedtime stories or watch TV with you when you can’t sleep. People who care enough to be scared when you hurt your hand and who will praise you when you solve a puzzle.

Maybe you can be happy here. Maybe you can be a _family_. You wouldn’t have to kill anyone or do painful or bad things again. Sure, there would be people who couldn’t forgive you for what you’ve done, and people who would hate you or be scared of you no matter what—but if Papyrus and Sans are with you, is that not enough? Even if everyone else is against you, if these two are willing to forgive you, then it’s all you need. You firmly believe that you can be happy. You want to believe it.

“Alright, I shall take my leave for now!” Papyrus announces with a big smile. “I have very important things to do!!”

“What things?” Sans asks him, smiling too.

“That… I cannot say! But it’s something very important that only someone as important as me, the great Papyrus, could do!”

Sans shrugs and returns to his TV show. Papyrus then turns over you.

“Be a good human while I am away! And also, make sure that my brother doesn’t leave his socks anywhere!! I am counting on you!”

You nod and give him a little smile. As he opens the door, Sans leans on the arm of the couch to look at Papyrus one last time.

“You sure you don’t need help with that important secret stuff, bro?” He grins.

“Like a lazy bone like you would be of any help!! And don’t bother asking: I am certainly not telling you what I’m planning to do!”

“Whatever, man.”

You finish your drawing and look at it, satisfied. It’s Papyrus and Sans, and they’re both holding each of your hands. This is the first time you’ve drawn yourself. Not me, but you. The three of you are smiling. You’ll show the drawing to Papyrus when he comes back. You hope that he’ll like it.

“Well, if you insist,” Papyrus continues in a condescending tone, “I will only say that I am going to meet with a little friend of mine! A very _flowery_ friend! Nyeh heh heh heh!”

Papyrus slams the door in a loud bang and your breathing stops. Slowly, you raise your head, cold sweat running down your back. You want to speak but nothing comes out of your mouth. The voices on TV are just faint echoes to your ears now; you can’t hear them anymore. There’s nothing left in this room but a distressing, dreadful silence.

 

I’ve told you many times, Frisk. We can _never_ be happy.


	14. Chapter 14

You try to stand up but your legs won’t move. Breathing is becoming difficult. The flower… Papyrus… Why won’t your legs move? There is nothing you can do. You knew it would happen.

You don’t want that? What difference does it make? Everything will disappear in the end. This pointless and cruel world will be just a bad dream. We will make everything go away, just like we said. No…? But you can’t go back now that we’ve gotten this far.

Sans must have perceived your distress, because he’s turning the TV off and coming closer. You try to clench your fists to stop your hands from shaking but it doesn’t work well. You want to say something. If you tell Sans, maybe he can do something. He said he would help you.

“What’s wrong?” He asks, putting a hand on your shoulder.

“He… He can’t… The flower…”

“The flower?”

Sans’ expression become anxious, like he’s recalling something. He grabs both of your shoulders and look at you right in the eyes.

“Come on, tell me. What about a flower?”

“It’s… dangerous,” you manage to say between two painful breathings. “I… I can’t do anything… I don’t want you to die, I…”

Sans lets go of your shoulders and walks to the door. When he opens it, a gust of wind blows inside, carrying snowflakes that fall on the floor and melt instantly. He looks around and frowns.

It’s all your fault.

“I’m sorry…” you whisper, tears running down your cheeks. There’s nothing you can do anymore, it’s too late. “I didn’t want that, I…”

Sans turns around and stares at you, and you can’t make out the expression on his face. Is it mistrust? Is it worry? You don’t know and you can’t figure out what you’re supposed to do now. It’s too soon, you didn’t have time to prepare yourself for that… You just started to feel things again, and you were starting to know Papyrus better and to get along with Sans. This is too soon! It can’t end already, not now that things finally started to get better… There has to be something you can do, but what? On your own, you don’t have any confidence or strength. What if you failed? You want to save...

But you don’t feel the slightest determination in you.

Suddenly, Sans starts laughing. You can’t believe your ears so you raise your head to look at him, but he’s definitely smiling—despite a few drops of sweat on his skull.

“Come on kid, I didn’t know you were such a babybone.” He closes his eyes, still smiling. “You didn’t get to fight him so maybe you don’t know, but my brother is pretty tough. And unlike me, he never gives up.”

You stop crying. Never give up… That’s right. You have witnessed it on many, many occasions now. All these times you came to kill him, and he would just open his arms and say he believes in you. You might be the only one to remember, but it still happened. Even after that, he kept encouraging you; no matter how many times you tried to hurt him or kill him, he never gave up on you.

“So, what are you gonna do?” Sans asks, hands in his pockets.

You wipe your tears away and your legs aren’t paralyzed anymore. Maybe there is still something you can do— _there’s not_. You glance at your Rubik’s cube on the table. If you keep trying, if you give it your best, there must be something even you can do— _people can’t change_. Papyrus told you you could do better. You want to believe it.

You stand up and run to the door, only stopping to put your shoes on before you throw it open. Cold air hits your face violently; looks like a snowstorm is starting. You turn around and look at Sans one last time.

“Go ahead, I’ll be just behind.”

You nod and you leave the house, rushing right into the storm.

 

You wish Papyrus had given a clue about where he was going, but all you can do right now is run around, hoping that you’re going in the right direction. It doesn’t take you long to leave the town.

What are you trying to accomplish? Someone like you, who can’t do anything on their own; what could you possibly do? Even if you manage to save one person, then what? Are you planning on living here forever, pretending to be happy and that nothing ever was wrong? How pretentious. After everything you’ve done…

“I didn’t want to do it!” you scream into the wind.

So what? Are you going to say that I’m the one who did it? Blame everything on me? Poor, little Frisk; they never wanted to hurt anyone, but I still forced them to… ‘Please, Papyrus, don’t hate me! I never did anything wrong!’

You can try and deceive everyone if you want; just tell them I’m the one responsible for everything. But you can’t lie to yourself. It was your hands covered in their dust. It was you who held the knife. I only told you to do it, but you could have refused.

“Shut up!”

You didn’t do anything to stop me, and that’s the truth! You didn’t want to make choices and face the responsibilities, so you let me decide for you. All you had to do was pretend you weren’t the one in control, that it was all my doing. Everything you did, everyone you killed; it was so much easier to think that this wasn’t _you_ anymore. If I was the one controlling your body, then no one would blame you for anything, right? No matter what happened, I would be responsible for everything, wouldn’t I? So you just looked away the whole time and stopped feeling anything, because that way you wouldn’t have to feel pain or guilt anymore. You ran away. And now, you’re blaming me for the choices you LET ME make, and you’re saying it’s all my fault? Don’t make me laugh.

YOU WERE THE ONE HOLDING THE KNIFE.

“Shut up, shut up!” you shout, covering your ears with your hands.

Do what you want. You can keep pretending that you’re innocent your whole life if you think it’s going to make you feel better; but you didn’t do anything to save them. You let them die, killed them with your own hands, just because someone told you to and you didn’t have the courage to fight back. And no matter how many resets you do, it will always be the one and only truth.

The only way to erase everything, to clean all your sins for good, is to destroy this world. Then there will be nothing left. No past, no future, no bad or good—nothing. It will be as if nothing ever happened at all. Wasn’t it what you wanted in the first place? To make everything stop…

“No!!” you shake your head.

You suddenly trip on something and lose your balance, falling on the snowy ground. You slowly stand on your knees, wiping the snow off your face and clothes. So, you think that you can be happy here, even after all this? That all your sins will be forgotten and forgiven? Just because you didn’t kill everyone, you think that it will make up for slaying the others? Think about the lady in the ruins. Think about the blue-skinned monster who lost all her comrades.

Do you think you can just choose who can live and who can’t, and everything will be fine?

“I’m not…”

You feel Sans’ presence behind you all of a sudden; you didn’t hear him approaching, maybe because the wind is howling so strongly. You get on your feet and face him, but you don’t say a word and he doesn’t either. You just both start walking again, side to side.

 

After five minutes or so, Sans starts talking in a calm voice.

“So hey, your power… How does it work, anyway? Can’t you use it to come back before my brother leaves, or something?”

You’re surprised to hear him talking about that. You still can’t figure out how he discovered you had such a power in the first place.

“I can’t save all the time…” you pause; you have to talk louder than usual because of the wind and it’s annoying. “I can only come back to the day we fought.”

That’s because you don’t have the determination to do anything. I was always the determined one, wasn’t I?

“I don’t want you to forget about me,” you add. “Because we would be enemies again…”

Sans doesn’t say anything. Maybe he hasn’t heard you.

You remember how he was the first day you met him. How he killed you so many times, tearing your body apart over and over. You remember the way he looked at you, with cold eyes full of suspicion and distrust. How long did it take before you started getting along? You don’t have the heart to return to the way it was before. You wouldn’t be able to stand it. And Papyrus wouldn’t remember a thing about you either; you would be a complete stranger again. That’s the last thing you’d want.

You can’t rely on your save file. You have to do something before it’s too late. There has to be a way.

“I can be happy,” you whisper for yourself.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i can't believe how many kudos and comments this fic has received already... i feel so blessed, you guys are the best! (and i'm sorry in advance but i warned about the sad part)

You and Sans eventually reach a deserted area not far and you both stop. In front of you is the familiar shape of the youngest and tallest of the skeleton brothers. The wind is still blowing strongly but it seems like there aren’t as many snowflakes falling in here. The cold air is burning your throat and lungs, and you have to wait a moment to take your breath before you can say something.

Papyrus turns around and you feel the tension in your shoulders loosen a bit. He seems okay. Looks like you made it in time. You take a deep breath and smile a little.

“What… What are you two doing here?” You hear Papyrus ask.

He sounds upset but at least he’s fine. He walks towards you, probably ready to scold you, but you have more important things to think about right now. You know the flower too well to drop your guard already. In fact, it’s weird that it hasn’t appeared by now… It should have known that you’d run after Papyrus, so why would it let you time to arrive?

Unless it was aiming to make you come here in the first place—you and Sans.

“Sans!” you scream. “It’s a—”

Trap. But you don’t have time to finish your sentence; suddenly, you feel something coil around your legs and pull you strongly enough to make you fall. Your head hits the snowy ground violently and you gasp painfully. Your vision becomes blurry for a few seconds and when you can get on your knees and see again, you notice something crawling under the snow, like dozens of snakes surrounding you. No, not snakes—roots.

You look around and let a relieved sigh out when you don’t see Sans next to you; apparently, your cut off warning had been enough to make him step back a little, just in time to evade the roots. Papyrus, however, wasn’t as lucky as his brother and both of his legs are surrounded by long, thin flower roots. He’s trying to shake them away but as soon as he grasps one and throws it away, another crawls up to replace it. Fast enough, they climb up to his arms and paralyze him effectively.

“What is going on?!” He screams. “Is that one of your stupid jokes??”

Before you can think of something to say to warn him, a yellow glint enters your field of vision and you turn your head to look at the tiny flower that just appeared between you and Papyrus.

“Howdy! Looks like everyone has gathered! What a heartwarming reunion…”

Flowey smiles innocently and you clench your teeth. The roots are still rolled up your feet, preventing you to move. You try to struggle, and Flowey’s smile just grows wider and creepier.

“Too bad that they’re all going to die.”

“Human!” Papyrus shouts. “What is he talking about??!”

“Oh, that’s right!” Flowey continues. “You haven’t told them about me, have you? What a bad child… you could have warned them, but you were too afraid of being rejected. And now, because of that, they’re going to die! And it’s all your fault!!”

Flowey starts laughing maniacally and you clench your teeth even harder, staring furiously at him. You want to kill him so bad… but you know he’s right, don’t you? You had all the opportunities in the world to warn your precious skeleton friends and yet, you never did. You didn’t want to think about the future and all the terrible things that would eventually have to happen, so you pretended everything was all right. That’s what you do. You run away. You always did, and you always will.

You turn around to grasp the roots on your feet and firmly tear them up to free your legs.

“So, you’re willing to fight me, huh?” Flowey says calmly. “So I guess you’re the _other one_ after all. What, do you want your soul back now that you’ve made some friends? That’s so… pathetic.”

You see one of the roots raise up and something is thrown at you suddenly. You put your arms in front of you to protect yourself, but the thing wasn’t aiming towards you but next to you. You recognize it pretty well; it’s your toy knife, the one that Sans took away from you what seems like ages ago. You stare at Flowey for a while, trying to figure out why he’s doing something like that, but there’s no point in understanding what’s going on in his plant brain, if he even have one. You accept the challenge and grab the knife.

“That’s right!” Flowey shouts in a crazy voice. “Fight me!”

You run toward him, cursing the snow internally for slowing you down. Flowey launches his roots to attack you and try to make you trip, but you manage to escape them and dash forward, raising your knife up. Now, just a little bit more and you’ll reach him!

“Don’t!!”

In a flash, Papyrus appears between you and Flowey, his arms open in a protective stance. You freeze, your hand still up and ready to stab the small flower behind him. You look up and try to find answers in Papyrus’ eyes that stare at you sternly, but you just don’t understand. Doesn’t he get it? Does he still think that Flowey is a friend? He just attacked you all! Papyrus should take a clue!

“He’s dangerous!” you shout angrily. “He’s not a friend, he wants to kill you!”

“That… Even if that’s true, you can’t kill him!!” Papyrus scolds.

You growl; he just won’t understand! You try to pass around him but Papyrus moves along, still blocking your way. Why isn’t Sans stopping him?! You turn around and he’s just looking at the two of you with a concerned face. Fine, they’re both useless! You just have to do it yourself!

“Let me kill him!” you scream.

“You must not!” Papyrus repeats, his voice determined. “What do you think I spent all this time trying to teach you?! Violence doesn’t solve things!”

“He’s different!” you hate having to explain yourself; you don’t have time for this!

“Listen, human,” Papyrus tries his best to keep calm. “I know that sometimes, you might think that there’s no other choice but to fight, but… there is! You have to try your best! If you don’t, then you’re just going to return to how you were before! You’ve made so much progress already! I know you can find another option!!”

Your hand holding the knife quivers. Don’t listen to him, you know how dangerous Flowey is! Don’t you want to save them? You can’t help your friends unless you kill him! Papyrus is just too naïve, you know that. Killing is the only option!

But you lower your hand a little. You don’t know what to think—who to believe. Is there another option but fighting? Can someone like you find a way? You’re not confident in yourself, you don’t know if you can do anything on your own. But Papyrus believes that you can… He trusts you. He thinks you can be better.

No, there’s no way you can do that. You’re not strong enough, you can’t find another solution to this puzzle! You have to kill Flowey, that’s the only way to make things end well. You can apologize to Papyrus after; he has forgiven you once, he will do it again. You will explain everything, tell him that you had no other choice. You can even tell him that I’m the one who did it, and you couldn’t control yourself. He’s so naïve, he’ll probably believe you. And Sans… maybe he won’t, but he’s gotten closer to you, so you don’t think he will do anything as long as you don’t try to hurt them…

It could work. Without Flowey, there will be no other threat. I could never control your body, so I won’t be able to do anything. Even if the other monsters come back and want to take you down, Papyrus and Sans will protect you. Even that blue-skinned monster will have to leave you alone. You can just forget about everything else! As long as you are with Papyrus and Sans, you can be happy. You will solve new puzzles and play in the snow. You will eat those terrible spaghetti all your life if you have to; you don’t even care.

That’s right… You can be happy. Just kill him. Kill the flower. Stab it until it can never move again. It’s evil, so you won’t have to feel guilty about it. Kill it and everything will be fine. You will have the happy life you always desired. You will have all the LOVE you wanted, and…

No, that’s… wrong. That’s wrong. That’s not what you wanted! That’s not “love”!

 

You let your arm fall down and Papyrus smiles. You won’t run away this time. You will be the better person Papyrus believes you can be. You will find the other solution of the puzzle. You smile back at him, even if your smile probably comes out a little weirdly.

“I knew you could do it!” Papyrus cheers, his smile wider than ever. “You can…!”

You wait for the rest, but it doesn’t come. Suddenly, everything is so calm, you wonder if time has stopped. Papyrus isn’t moving, his mouth still open. You just wait, but then, you notice something is off.

A glimpse of red, down his chest. Something crawling out of it, like a thin and thorny snake. And then, he falls on his knees, the snow covering every sound.

“You fools…” you hear Flowey’s laugh coming from behind him. “Don’t you know already? In this world… _it’s kill or be killed_.”


	16. Chapter 16

“Pa… py… rus?” You whisper, your voice trembling.

You don’t understand what’s going on. You don’t _want_ to understand. It can’t be real—it just can’t.

On your right, you see Sans in the corner of your eye, rushing to you and saying something; but he’s stopped by giant roots attacking him immediately, preventing him for reaching you and his brother. You think you hear him swear; you’re not sure. It doesn’t matter.

The root piercing Papyrus’ chest retreats and he falls over you, as if it was the only thing holding him. You almost fail to catch him, your arms only moving at the last second. Papyrus is lighter than you’d have thought. He seems so weak in your arms, suddenly. So fragile.

“Human, you can’t… kill him” he says, his voice not quite as loud and energetic as usual. “I’m sure he had a reason, and… even if he didn’t… there is always another option! Everyone can be better, they just need someone to guide them!”

He’s using your shoulder to hold himself and is looking firmly at you, right in the eyes.

“You can do it! I know you can! You’re… going to be okay…”

A gust of wind blows in your face and the next second Papyrus is gone. The dust that falls on your hands is blown away immediately and there’s nothing left but a red stain on the white snow. This can’t be happening.

You close your eyes, praying very hard for everything to go back to normal when you open them again. But it doesn’t. You’re starting to feel sick, you feel like you’re going to faint. Memories are flashing in your head. Papyrus carrying a plate of burnt pancakes proudly, or panicking after you wounded your hand. Papyrus and Sans sitting next to you on the couch in the middle of the night because you couldn’t sleep. Papyrus throwing snowballs at you, laughing, and taking you in his arms after you just completed a puzzle.

And then, memories you don’t want to remember but remember anyway. Papyrus turning into dust after being stabbed by your hand, his head remaining for a few seconds only. His words of encouragement that you’ve heard so many times. He never stopped trusting people. He never gave up on you, even after all the horrible things you’ve done.

This can’t be the end. There must be something you can do. If you could just reset…

That’s right, you can start over. Everything will be fine again. Even if they forget about you; you don’t care anymore. You just want Papyrus to be fine and alive and—

“So weak!” Flowey suddenly says. “I can’t believe how easy it was. He didn’t even try to fight back!”

You stare angrily at him, but that only seems to make his smile grow wider and crazier.

“You’re not thinking about resetting, are you?” He asks, as if he was reading your thoughts. “Because that would really be the dumbest thing. Do you know for how many days I’ve been talking to that weakling? I could lead him to me anytime, before you can even manage to warn him. And you know I would remember everything, even if you start over.”

He’s right. You can’t even reset on your own anyway. Flowey doesn’t know that, but it doesn’t matter. Even if you find the determination to do that, you won’t be able to stop Flowey in time.

But you can kill him now.

“Sans…” you say softly, your voice almost covered by the sound of the wind. “Help me.”

You grab your knife and stand up. Flowey gives you an amused look; he seems satisfied and ready to take you on. For a few seconds, no one moves at all.

Then Sans makes a step in your direction and as Flowey’s roots rise up to stop him once again, you throw your knife at them. It plants between two large thorns and pin the giant root to the ground; Flowey lets out a surprised gasp as the root wriggles uselessly. You get closer to it and sink the knife deeper until you cut it completely. Sans is looking at you without saying a word. The expression on his face looks somewhat painful.

“Kid…”

You don’t say anything, barely looking at him. You can’t stand to face him right now. Everything that is happening is your fault. Maybe Sans won’t ever forgive you for this—you’re not even sure you can forgive yourself. But there’s only one thing you can do right now. You have to stop Flowey; that’s the least you can do.

You hold your knife firmly and face the tiny flower. Fortunately, Sans seems to be ready to cooperate, and he’s standing next to you. You wonder what he’s thinking at this instant. It’s not the same as when you killed Papyrus yourself; he probably knows that killing Flowey wouldn’t make his brother come back, so you weren’t sure he would help you fight him.

But there is no time for doubting him now. You start running as fast as you can, and immediately you see three long roots sliding under the snow, attacking you from all directions. You’re about to stop but something brushes against you and the next instant, three large bones smash the roots down. Seizing the opportunity Sans is giving you, you dash towards Flowey and swing your arm—only to stab the air as he disappears into the ground.

You quickly turn on your feet and try to spot him, but Flowey is nowhere to be found. Suddenly, something pushes your back violently and you fall on your knees just in time to evade a dozen of pellets looking like flower petals that fly above your head before planting themselves into the snow. Once again you feel really grateful to have Sans watching your back.

You get back on your feet and dash towards where the pellets came from. Quickly, you detect a yellow spot in the snow and you try to stab it, but a wall of thick roots rises in front of you at the last second and your toy knife gets stuck in it; you have to grab it with both hands to get it out.

Of course, Flowey wasn’t going to patiently wait here for you to kill him. You’re trying to catch your breath, looking around to find the tiny flower again. Sans comes next to you without saying a word and you don’t look directly at him.

You see Flowey pop out of the snow at a safe distance in front of you, a smug smile on his face.

“I see you’re finally starting to get serious!” he laughs, looking confident. “How stupid. You can’t defeat me. Even if you kill me, you won’t be satisfied with this ending, will you? You’ll want to start over, and I will be back again. No matter what you do, I will be here to break apart all your happy family fantasies, over, and over, and over, until you finally give up and let us do what we want. Don’t you get it? You never stood a chance against us!”

You bite your lower lip. What’s wrong? Why don’t you say anything? Oh, right. You can’t talk back, because you know he’s right. You don’t believe you can fix this situation and get the happy life you want on your own. But that’s okay. I will help you. It will be easy; I’ll just tell you where to hit to kill him. That’s the only thing you’re good for, isn’t it? And the more he comes back, the more you can kill him again. Gain more EXP and LV, and you’ll be able to stop anyone in your way. We could have everything we want then, you and me.

Now, make a few steps forward. Keep your knife in your hands. You want to make things better, right? Just kill the flower and everything will be fine.

Slowly, you take a deep breath and when close your eyes again, you see Papyrus’ face. You feel calm, for the first time in a while. All the doubts you had start to disappear one after the other. No matter what happens now, you feel like it’s going to be fine. Everything is clear now.

You start walking and quickly you see Sans rise a hand in your direction, as if he wanted to grab your arm and stop you, but you turn to face him and he freezes.

“It’s okay” is the only thing you say to him before turning around. “I know what to do.”

Sans doesn’t answer. You face Flowey again. You don’t have doubts anymore.

You are filled with DETERMINATION.


	17. Chapter 17

This time, you won’t let Flowey escape. Ignoring all the roots he’s launching at you—you’ll trust Sans to deal with these—you keep running towards your enemy. When he sees his attacks are useless against you, Flowey starts throwing more sharp petals in your direction; one of them scratches your arm, leaving a bleeding cut that doesn’t seem too deep, fortunately.

All the pellets he’s launching prevent you from advancing, but you try to stay calm, waiting for an opportunity. Flowey can’t keep attacking forever. Another petal hits you in the back and you almost fall on your knees from the impact. But then, the assault stops and you know you don’t have time to rest: you have to hit him back while you can. The pain on your arm and your back is still bearable. It’s nothing compared to all the rest.

You dash towards Flowey without hesitating one second. Once again he retreats into the ground, but this time you manage to scratch him with your knife, ripping half of a petal out. You don’t know if a flower can actually feel pain but you don’t really care, as long as you can deal some damage.

If everything, it must have gotten him worked up, because Flowey’s next attack is on another level. Before you can find him again, the ground suddenly seems to start shaking a little. You try to get closer to Sans but before you can do anything, dozens of giant roots rise up from under the snow, surrounding you like a cage separating the two of you.

Immediately you try to cut them with your knife, but they are so close one from another that you can barely scratch them on the surface.

“Heh… sorry, kid,” you hear Sans apologize. “I’ll just be _rooting_ for you from now on.”

You can’t believe he’s actually making a joke in a situation like this, but it’s nothing surprising in the end. You feel a little anxious now that Sans can’t back you up, but it wouldn’t do good to rely on him too much anyway. It would be pointless if you’re not the one doing this.

Flowey appears from under the snow, facing you with a slightly more irritated expression now. He looks like he’s preparing something.

“Aren’t you getting tired?” he asks with a scornful smile. “How about we end this now?”

It doesn’t take long for you to realize that in this narrow and closed space you won’t be able to run away or move freely; but that goes for Flowey too. He probably wants to end this in one concentrated attack. If you survive this, you’ll be able to strike back. You take a defensive stance and wait for the assault.

As expected, Flowey launches an attack at you soon after that. Thorns start growing out of the roots forming the cage around you and in a flash they’re all thrown at you one after another. You feel a rush of adrenaline as you try to repel them with your knife; but of course, that kind of things only work in anime, definitely not something a child like you could do. You forget about the idea and just start moving away, trying to escape from the pointy thorns.

As you start to get the hand of it, a root suddenly whips your legs and you let out a cry of pain. Other roots follow suit, but they’re easier to evade than the thorns and you barely manage to stay entire when the attack finally stops.

You take a quick look at your arms and legs. A few thorns are planted on them, some deeper than the others. You didn’t even feel them hit you, too focused on evading the rest, but now that you’re calming down, all of the pain hits you instantly and you have to try very hard not to faint. No time to take care of it; Flowey won’t let you another chance.

When he realizes what you’re about to do, Flowey’s face becomes distorted in a mix of terror and fury, and as you run towards him, he tries to stop you by forming a tiny root wall in front of him. But he’s too slow, and you easily cut the roots with your knife in one hand, gripping the flower’s thin body in the other. You pull him out of the ground and the root cage immediately collapses, the roots falling lifelessly on the floor and disappearing into the snow.

You can feel the wind on your already cold skin again. Sans is right behind you, silent, and Flowey squirms in your hand; but you’re holding him tight and he eventually gives up on trying. You take a deep breath, your heart still beating faster than usual.

“What are you waiting for?” Flowey asks, smiling.

You don’t say a thing. Just looking at him and hearing his voice is infuriating. You hate him so, so much, you just want him gone forever. Killing him is the best option; there is no way he can do any good and you know it. You’re not as trusting as Papyrus. Not everyone can be a better person if they try.

“No matter what you do, you’ll lose,” Flowey laughs scornfully. “You reset, I come back and kill everyone. You let me live in this timeline, I kill the others. And if you kill me and stay here, your stupid friend and all the innocent people you’ve killed will be dead forever!”

You clench your fist, squeezing him a little more until he shuts up and grimace in pain. You don’t have to listen to what he says; just end this now. You want to kill him. You have to kill him.

So why aren’t you…

“I won’t.”

What…?

Flowey stares curiously at you, like he can’t believe what you just said.

“I’m not killing you,” you state in a quiet voice.

What are you thinking? You want to kill him, I know it. You can’t hide your feelings from me. Are you trying to pretend that you’re different now?

“I want to, but I won’t,” you continue.

“Are you out of your mind?” Flowey asks, looking unhappy now. “Or is it just stupidity? Do you think I’m lying when I say I’m going to kill all your friends? Don’t tell me you actually believe that I can be better!”

“I don’t think you can change. But I can. I’m different from you.”

…

“That’s the most idiotic thing I’ve heard in years!” Flowey bursts into laugher. “You’re just a weakling that got their soul stolen. You won’t be able to stop me. I’ve already thought of a plan to make everyone suffer, and when I achieve it, you won’t even stand a chance against me!”

You look down, clenching your teeth a little. You’re doubting yourself. His words are painful as the thorns planted in your limbs. Can you really do this? Is trying and doing your best enough? And can you actually give it your best, knowing that the outcome won’t be different?

“…Yes.”

“What?” Flowey says, disconcerted.

“I will find a way to stop you and I won’t kill you. Maybe you can’t be better, but you were a good person once. I have their memories too, so I know it.”

This might be the longest sentence you’ve said in ages. All that saliva wasted for saying useless things like that… Have you not learnt your lesson already? Why do you keep hoping? Wasn’t it painful enough, every single time you had all these hopes crushed? You can’t be happy, Frisk!

“I will kill you,” Flowey whispers, and it somehow comes out like a mix between a threat and a plea. “If you spare me now, I swear I will kill you no matter what, and then kill you again until you beg me for mercy.”

“I won’t let you,” you firmly say.

“I will remember everything!”

“No you won’t.”

Flowey doesn’t answer and looks troubled.

Wait. Are you trying to…?

Without a word, you put the tiny flower on the ground. He looks at you with an expression you can’t quite make out and then he turns around and disappears into the ground again. You think you can hear him say something that sounds like “You’ll regret this” before he vanishes underground.

He’s gone. It’s finally over. You close your eyes and for a second, you feel like you’re about to faint, but a boney hand catches your back before you fall.

You open your eyes again and look at Sans. You give him a shy smile and he smiles back a little, although the expression on his face is a little weird. The skeleton then helps you sit down and pulls the remaining thorns out of you.

“Do you think… I should have killed him?” you ask hesitantly.

“Dunno, kid.”

“I really wanted to,” you confess. “But… I was scared.”

“Scared?”

“I think… that if I kill someone again, I will lose myself for good. I thought I wanted that, but… not anymore.”

Sans doesn’t say anything. You’re not used to talking for so long, so your throat is a little dry now.

“So, what are you gonna do now?” Sans eventually asks.

You look at the sky for a while, and then at the spot where Papyrus stood just a little while ago. Biting your lip at the memory, you face Sans again and force a tiny smile on your lips.

“I want to start over.”


	18. Chapter 18

For a minute or two, neither you or Sans say anything. Being outside in the cold for so long, your skin has turned abnormally red and you almost can’t feel your legs and feet anymore—which is probably a good thing considering all the cuts and scratches the fight with Flowey has left on your body. They won’t matter much longer though, will they? You’re planning on going back. Back to where everything began; at the entrance of the ruins.

You feel you have to say something, so you look at Sans again. His unwavering smile is on his face, and for a moment it’s almost like everything is normal and fine again. Papyrus would appear from behind a rock and throw a snowball at you, and after a while you would all go home and warm yourself with a hot cocoa and a blanket. You would watch TV all together.

But those times are gone forever now. Even if you don’t want to believe it, you know you have to accept the truth.

“I know that I’ve done… some very bad things,” you say quietly. “And I can’t always fix what’s broken, just like you said, but… I want to try and do things better.”

You had almost forgotten how hard talking is. You feel unsure and scared, and you have no idea what Sans is thinking right now. You could reset right away; I’m sure you have enough determination in you by now. Maybe you could even do something even more powerful. A perfect true reset, erasing almost everything that happened in this timeline. With that, even Flowey would forget. That’s what you were thinking, right?

“So, I guess this is goodbye?” Sans says all of a sudden. “Well, for me at least. Say hi to the next Sans for me, kay? Uh… actually, don’t do that. That’d be pretty weird.”

You smile a little and nod.

“You’ve really been a long way, huh?” the skeleton continues. “You’re almost like a regular weirdo now. Makes me think that, maybe, in the next timeline, I could even think of you as… a friend? I don’t know. Hey, do me a favor, okay? Don’t tell anything about what happened here to the other me. Let yourself a chance to find out.”

You feel something aching inside your chest at Sans’ words. Hearing him talk like that, like it was the last time… Well, it is, actually. That’s why it hurts so much to leave him. You know that when the reset is done, this Sans will be gone forever, and so will the time you spent at the skeletons’ house. It was such a short time, when you think of it. It seems like years to you, but it was only a brief instant, really. And yet, you value these times way more than all the years you had spent in the outside world.

Maybe that’s your punishment for all the horrible things you’ve done; but you’re ready to accept it. You have a chance to make things take another turn and you know deep inside that if you don’t seize that opportunity, you will feel the guilt of it for the rest of your life. You don’t know if you can reach that better ending you dream of, but you have to give it a try. It’s the least you can do now. For Papyrus, for Sans, and for everyone else. You know that’s the right thing to do.

But…

You bite your lip and feel the tears appearing in the corner of your eyes. Before you can ask yourself if that’s an appropriate thing to do or not, you run to Sans and take him in your small arms, holding him as tight as you can and sinking your head in the blue hoodie he’s always wearing. It smells like ketchup and greasy food.

“Wow, hey, careful here, kiddo,” you can hear the discomfort in Sans’ voice. “You’re tickling my ribs.”

Despite his words, he’s patting your head in an almost affectionate manner and you don’t feel like moving at all. But you let go of him anyway, feeling that staying like this for too long would weaken your resolve to go.

You want to say something else, but nothing comes to your mind. Sans talks before you can think of something.

“By the way, kid, what’s your name?”

You blink, a little caught off guard by the sudden question.

“It’s Frisk.”

“Frisk, huh? That’s an okay name, I guess. Gonna leave it to the next Sans to find good wordplays based on it. I know the guy, you won’t be disappointed.”

Sans winks and you giggle a bit. If you and him really become friends one day, then you’ll have to learn some jokes as well.

“Alright, take care, kid.”

You nod. Your eyes become teary and your vision is blurry now. You can’t see what face he’s making, but you know he’s smiling as usual.

You close your eyes, and then everything is gone.

 

***

 

You wake up in a yellow flowerbed, a soft breeze caressing your ears. The scent of flowers is appeasing. You stretch your arms and your legs; all the pain and the cold are gone now. You feel different, too. Well, of course you would. You’re LV1 again. All the things we’ve accomplished, all the strength we had gained, gone in an instant. If Flowey was to fight you now, you’d probably lose.

And yet, you feel determined. Lighter, in fact. As if the weight of all your sins was gone, with only a small dark part remaining now, locked in the deepest corner of your soul. Ready to go out as soon as you kill someone again.

Me? I’m just going to wait. I can’t do much trapped in there anyway. But I know that one day I’ll be able to come back. The only thing I need is a moment of doubt. “What if I killed just a few monsters? If I had just a little more DEF and HP, I could stand against that strong enemy much easier. It won’t make such a big difference anyway. They’re attacking me, so they’re at fault too, right?” See, that’s where everything always begins. Everyone has good intentions at first. It’s when life becomes tough that they want to look for an escape route. A way to make things _easier_.

“I won’t be alone,” you say quietly, still lying on the flowerbed. “My friends will help me.”

Yeah, right. They’ll do things for you at first, maybe, but when the real difficulties happen, nobody will come to help. You’ll be on your own again.

“I’ll be okay.”

You know you won’t. There will be times you want to give up. Times you’ll get frustrated. Eventually, you’ll start to think it doesn’t matter that much.

Be honest with me, Frisk. Wasn’t it easier to let me make all the hard choices? Weren’t you fine before those skeletons start to talk to you and put weird ideas and hopes inside your head? Why care about everyone else. They’ll just betray you in the end. One day, you’ll realize I was right, and that the ending I’m trying to reach is the best. Because someday, you’ll get bored. You’ll want to know what would have happened.

You keep silent. You still don’t have that much self-confidence, do you? That’s the same for everyone. The future is uncertain. Being on your own is scary, isn’t it?

“Is that why you’re still with me?”

You idiot. What’s with that smile on your face? I’ve only been awoken by your despair and your desire to see everything end. I’m only sticking with you until you serve your purpose and erase this stupid world.

“You were human too, once. You had friends.”

That’s not true anymore. There is nothing left of that life but hatred. In the end, that’s the only thing that remains.

“What about Asriel?”

You mean the _flower?_ Don’t make me laugh.

“You cared about him.”

I’ve just told you. I don’t feel anything but hatred anymore. I’ll use him like I’m using you, and throw him away when he becomes useless. But talking about this is a waste of time. Go live your fake happy life if you want. You’ll be calling my name sooner or later.

“We can be happy.”

No we can’t. Maybe you can, for a while at least, but I’ll never be.

Anyway, I’m done talking.

 

***

 

“Goodbye, my child”

The warm and fluffy arms let go of you and you don’t turn back as you hear the footsteps of Toriel go away. You wish you can see her again and talk to her some more. It was hard to leave that house, but you couldn’t stay here forever. That would be breaking your unsaid promise to Sans and Papyrus to make everything better.

 

You pass the door and exit the ruins. Cold air instantly hits your face and burns your throat. This scenery is making your heart ache at the painful memories that it’s holding, but you know it’s also the sign of a new beginning. You start walking in the snow, passing rows of trees so big you can’t even see the tops. It’s an amazing sight; you can’t believe you missed it the first time you came here. You didn’t even think of looking up, back then.

Lost in thoughts, you don’t pay attention to the bridge you’re coming closer to, and what is supposed to happen here. You almost jump when you hear the voice. Freezing, you don’t dare to look behind, afraid that it was only your imagination.

But you feel his presence come closer and when he asks you to shake his hand, you slowly turn around and grab the bony hand. A long and weird sound echoes as you feel something pressing against your palm and suddenly, you realize you had forgotten to breathe for a few seconds. And then, without even thinking about it, you start to giggle—until you burst into laughter. It’s so silly; a joke so old, nobody would even find it funny nowadays. And yet, here you are, unable to stop. The smile on Sans’ face is bigger than you’ve ever seen it.

“Heheh… The old whoopee cushion in the hand trick. It’s ALWAYS funny.”

You can’t stop smiling. You want to cry so bad, your throat hurts like hell because of all the tears you’re trying your best to hold back. You can’t even think of something to say right now. You didn’t know it was possible to feel so sad and so happy at the same time.

You follow Sans without a word and you just nod as he asks you to hide behind a conveniently-shaped lamp. This time, you do as he says and go stand behind it, waiting for what’s to follow. Closing your eyes, you have to keep reminding yourself not to laugh, but you can’t do much about the tears running down your cheeks. It’s a good thing nobody can see you right now. That lamp sure is convenient.

“Sup, bro?” Sans says in a joking tone.

You hear footsteps come closer and your smile widens.

Now everything can begin.

***

THE END


End file.
